Court stops Ibeto from laying claim to P’Harcourt property

A Rivers State High Court, Port Harcourt, presided by Justice Adolphus Enebeli, has also granted an injunction restraining Cletus Ibeto and his group of companies, their servants, agents and privies from continuing to lay claim over a Sungreen Oil & Gas Limited land registered as No. 37 on Page 37 in Volume 359 of the Lands Registry office in Port Harcourt, measuring an area approximately 122 hectares situate at Niteco Shipyard layout, Reclamation Phase II, Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The court also affirmed the validity of the Deed of Assignment registered as No. 37 on Page 37 in Volume 359 of the Lands Registry office in Port Harcourt executed between Nigeria Technical Company Limited (NITECO) and Sungreen Oil and Gas Limited, a subsidiary of Dozzy.

Justice Enebeli delivered the judgment in a land suit brought against Dozzy Oil and Gas Limited and SunGreen Oil and Gas Limited (a sister company to Dozzy Oil and Gas Limited) by Chief Cletus Ibeto.

The court further ordered Ibeto to refund the sum of N3, 295,000,000 being the sum received in naira for the failed land transaction, while maintaining that the $3,000,000 given to Ibeto by Dozzy was not given as part of the payment for the purchase of the land.

However, the court also affirmed Ibeto’s right to Statutory Right of Occupancy over the property within Reclamation Road Layout at Bundu Ama Community with a cumulative area of 22.6536 hectares, the subject of a Deed of Sub-lease dated March 19, 2010, and registered as No. 47 on Page 47 in Volume 280 of the Lands Registry office in Port Harcourt.

A Certified True Copy of the judgment delivered on March 29, 2023, but obtained by The Guardian, yesterday, showed that the court also granted an injunction restraining Dozzy Oil and Gas from trespassing into the piece of land measuring 22.6536 hectares, which forms part of the piece and parcel of land registered as No. 43 on Page 43 in Volume 6 of the Lands Registry office in Port Harcourt.

While the court granted an injunction over 22 hectares of lands in favour of Ibeto predicating the grant on a title document covering only 16 hectares of land, which was partitioned by Nigerian Shipbuilders Limited and sub-leased to various other companies inclusive of Ibeto, which was granted a lease of 7.8 hectares by Nigeria Shipbuilders from the original grant of 16 hectares, which it got from NITECO, the court also in the judgment stated that Sungreen can only be entitled to claim only the portion encroached upon by Ibeto and his group of companies in Sungreen’s 122 hectares of land assigned to it by NITECO.

Ibeto had in the cause of trial presented as evidence of his title to part of the disputed land, a title document which recitals bore the grant of 40 acres from their lessors but had inserted into it a schedule and survey plan measuring approximately 22 hectares which was at variance with the counterpart copy in the Lands Registry. This prompted the subpoena of the current and past Registrars of Titles of the Lands Registry Office in Port Harcourt, Messrs Sylvanus Nwanpila and Henry Uzo, who both under oath and cross examination stated that the size of the land contained in the Deed of Sub-lease registered as No. 47/47/280 in the Lands Registry Office sub-leased to Ibeto Energy Development Company by Odoh Holdings Limited is only 7.8 hectares not 22.6 hectares, that a sub-lessee cannot acquire a greater interest than that of its lessor, and that the Lands Registry office had in the past written to Ibeto to return the Deed of Sub-lease mistakenly certified for it to the Lands Registry.

Dozzy had also in the cause of trial tendered the composite plan prepared by the Surveyor General of Rivers State, which clearly showed that Ibeto encroached by 172011.64 square metres into the 122 hactares of land sold to Sungreen Oil and Gas Limited by NITECO.

The injunction granted in favour of Ibeto and his group of companies in respect of 22.6536 hectares of land subdivided from and forming part of all that piece of land registered as No. 43 on Page 43 in Volume 6 of the Lands Registry Office has continued to puzzle legal observers and commentators, as the land registered as No. 43/43/6 in the Lands Registry between NITECO and its subsidiary company, Nigeria Shipbuilders Limited, is a sub-lease of 40 acres (16 hectares). The Guardian