Abdulrahman Basha, a Nigerian billionaire. owner of Rahmaniya Filling Station and Ultimate Oil and Gas has earned a one-year jail term in Dubai for financial crime.
According to Premium Times, Bashar hauled the jail term on account of a financial crime involving a CI Energy Company.
Documents referred to in the report revealed that the UAE court gave the verdict on 30 January 2025.
The sentencing document indicated that the UAE charged the businessman with issuing seven cheques with a combined value of 126.45 million dirhams, drawn on an Emirates Islamic Bank account with a mismatch in his signature.
The prosecution accused the Nigerian billionaire, Bashar, of issuing the cheques by “deliberately signing and drafting them in a way that prevents their cashing,” consequently asking that Bashar be punished under extant laws.
The court, relying on evidence presented to it, including statements by Jamal Awad Nasser Hussein (the agent of CI Energy), duplicates of the cheques, and statements of account, noted that the cheques were returned unpaid on presentation at Emirates Islamic Bank because of disparity in Mr. Bashar’s signature.
“It is established that the crime of issuing a cheque is realised merely by giving the cheque to the beneficiary knowing that there is no balance available for withdrawal,” the court said during the proceeding led by Judge Hussein Hamdi.
Unfortunately, the Dubai sentence is the second time in five years Bashar has been punished for a crime abroad.
Before this legal trouble, Justice Butcher of the England and Wales High Court, in a verdict issued in February 2020, sentenced Bashar to a jail term of ten months for flouting several orders of the court in a case initiated by Sahara Energy Resources.
The basis of the sentence was that Bashir had committed continuing breaches of the order of Mr. Justice Robin Knowles of 1 August 2019 and of the order of Mr. Justice Bryan of 6 September 2019,” Justice Butcher said.
Rahmaniya was eventually fined £500,000, while Adebowale Aderemi, the manager of the company, was asked to pay a penalty of £10,000.
In the meantime, Bashar and his company have been silent over the latest jail term.
