Court moves to seize oil trader assets in $40million Rahamaniyya debt dispute

Nigerian federal high court enforcement officers moved on Wednesday against assets linked to Abdulrahman Bashar, chairman of the Rahamaniyya Group of Companies, in Lagos and Abuja, acting on court orders secured by Dubai-based Petrichor Energy FZCO in a $40 million debt dispute that has now crossed four jurisdictions.

The action follows a February 25 order of the Federal High Court’s Lagos Judicial Division granting Petrichor leave to register, for enforcement purposes, a judgment handed down by the High Court of Justice of England and Wales.

The Lagos court later issued writs of attachment and sale dated May 15: one against Bashar personally, and a second against Bashar jointly with Ultimate Oil & Gas FZCO, directing the Sheriff to levy the debt by seizing goods, chattels, and specified financial assets.

Enforcement documents were served and posted at properties connected to the two respondents in both cities on Wednesday.

“The writs direct the Sheriff to levy the sums due through attachment and sale of goods and chattels belonging to the respondents, as well as seizure of specified monetary and financial assets,” according to the enforcement filings.

The Nigerian action is the latest front in a recovery effort that began with allegedly unpaid fuel cargoes. Between 2022 and 2023, Petrichor, then trading as CE Energy DMCC, supplied gasoil and Jet-A1 aviation fuel to Ultimate Oil & Gas, the Dubai-registered trading arm of Rahamaniyya.

Ultimate took delivery but did not pay in full, leaving roughly $40 million outstanding and pushing the parties into parallel litigation and arbitration.

Bashar signed a personal settlement agreement in January 2024, backed by a personal guarantee and a set of undated cheques.

When Petrichor later presented those cheques, they were dishonoured. By February 14, 2025, London’s Commercial Court had entered judgment against Bashar and, in related proceedings, against Ultimate Oil & Gas DMCC, covering principal, interest and costs under the guarantee, and declined to stay execution.

The case sharpened on March 30, when the English High Court granted a worldwide freezing order against Bashar and Ultimate, covering assets across Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and France.

With the English judgment now registered in Nigeria and the Federal High Court writs in hand, Petrichor’s Nigerian enforcement team began serving notices in Lagos and Abuja Wednesday, the first visible step toward converting a foreign judgment into recovered cash or property inside Nigeria.

Lawyers not involved in the case say registration and enforcement of English commercial judgments through Nigeria’s Federal High Court, while procedurally well-established, typically takes months from filing to the posting of writs, underscoring how long-running the recovery effort has become.

Bashar and representatives of Rahamaniyya Group did not respond to requests for comment. Petrichor Energy’s legal advisers declined to comment beyond the court filings.

The Nigerian enforcement action does not stand alone. Parallel proceedings are underway in the Dubai International Financial Centre courts under case reference CFI 118/2025, and a Dubai criminal court sentenced Bashar on January 30 to one year in prison over dishonoured cheques totalling 126.45 million dirham, separate from, but arising out of, the same pattern of unpaid obligations.

Taken together, the London judgment, the worldwide freezing order, the DIFC proceedings and now the Lagos and Abuja writs mark one of the more geographically dispersed private debt-recovery campaigns against a Nigerian oil trader in recent years.

The judgment debt in the underlying Petrichor proceedings, including accrued interest and costs, stands at approximately $40 million. Ultimate Oil & Gas FZCO remains the UAE-registered offshore trading vehicle of the Rahamaniyya Group.