A Lagos Federal High Court has thrown out an objection filed by the
Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited (Agip) to stop the Federal Government of Nigeria from proceeding with a lawsuit filed against them.

The objection was filed by the oil company on March 24, 2016 after the federal government instituted a lawsuit against some notable oil companies.

Agip had prayed the court to throw out the federal government’s suit on the ground that the government had failed to disclose a reasonable cause of action against the defendant.

However, in opposing the objection, the federal government, through its lawyer, Fabian Ajogwu (SAN), had filed a counter affidavit asking the court to disregard the objections raise by Agip, holding that there is a right and and a reasonable cause of action against the Defendant.

In delivering her ruling on Tuesday, the court had agreed with the position of the federal government, noting that the government had a reasonable cause of action against the multinational oil corporation.

It would be recalled that the Nigerian government had on March 3, 2016 filed a civil suit against Shell, Chevron, Agip and other major oil companies, in an attempt to recover over N2 trillion that was allegedly unremitted crude oil revenue from over 57 million barrels of crude oil shipments that were either not declared or under-declared between 2011 and 2014.