Malabu Oil & Gas Limited has filed a lawsuit before the Federal High Court in Abuja, challenging its deregistration by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
The company is asking the court to declare the CAC’s action “null and void.”
The oil firm, reportedly co-owned by Mohammed Abacha — son of the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha — and other shareholders, has been embroiled in a long-standing leadership and ownership dispute.
According to court documents, the suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2137/2025, lists the CAC as the sole defendant. The deregistration was allegedly carried out on grounds of failure to file annual returns.
In the suit filed by counsel Reuben Atabo, SAN, Malabu is asking the court to order the CAC to restore its name to the register of companies in line with Section 692(6) of the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA), 2020.
Atabo also requested “an order of perpetual injunction, restraining the defendant (CAC) from further deregistering and/or striking off the name of the plaintiff from its register.”
He further argued that given the ongoing court cases over the company’s control and management, “it is improper in law for the defendant to purport to strike off the plaintiff’s name from the register of companies in Nigeria pursuant to the provisions of Section 692(3) of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020.”
The lawyer cited multiple pending suits involving Malabu, including FHC/ABJ/CS/51/2010, FHC/ABJ/CS/14/2017, FHC/ABJ/CS/816/14, CR/151/2020, and FHC/ABJ/CR/268/2016, one of which had the CAC as a party.
In an affidavit deposed to by Mohammed Abacha, he confirmed being one of the original subscribers and current directors of Malabu Oil & Gas.
He stated that the company was incorporated in April 1998 with RC No: 334442, alongside Kweku Amafagha and Hassan Hindu, Wakili Adamawa, as founding directors and shareholders.
Abacha disclosed that upon incorporation, the company applied to the Federal Government for an oil block and was granted Oil Processing License (OPL) 245 by the then Minister of Petroleum Resources.
He recounted that in September 1999, during the administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, he was detained by security agencies for three years. During that period, “certain alterations were made at the company’s registry of the defendant wherein my shareholding and directorship were altered without my consent and approval.”
Abacha said he had written through his lawyer to the CAC between 2005 and 2011, seeking correction of the alleged illegal changes, but received no response. He subsequently filed suit FHC/ABJ/CS/51/2010 before Justice Gabriel Kolawole (now of the Court of Appeal).
He further alleged that the CAC failed to notify the company or publish any notice in a national daily before striking off its name, as required by law.
Abacha maintained that the deregistration was “unlawful, illegal, null and void,” stressing that refusing the reliefs sought “would occasion a grave prejudice to the plaintiff.”
The case is yet to be assigned a hearing date as of press time.
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