TWIN sisters, Ameena and Zara, have won a $43.51million court ruling against their father, Mohammed Indimi, after a long-running fight over unpaid dividends, a decision that has now pushed one of Nigeria’s most influential business families into the spotlight.
According to The Africa Report, quoted by Business Insider Africa, a Federal High Court ordered Oriental Energy to pay the full amount to the sisters in a major setback for billionaire oil magnate, Mohammed Indimi, and escalating a feud that has been simmering for years behind closed doors.
The feud began when the twins said they were shut out of a huge dividend pool reportedly worth around $435million, arguing that they jointly held 10 per cent of the company, giving them a right to part of the payout.
They claimed their shareholdings were cut sharply without their agreement.
Court filings showed that they believed those changes blocked them from receiving millions of dollars linked to the firm’s earnings from its offshore operations.
And soon, a private battle becames public, and the court victory has turned what was once an internal family argument into public news, partly because of the sums involved and partly because of the businessman at the centre of it.
Oriental Energy has long been a major private player in Nigeria’s oil sector and the family has often tried to keep business matters out of the public scrutiny.
However, the ruling has deepened interest in the story and raised wider questions about how family-run firms manage ownership and decision-making.
It was gathered that the disagreement has spread beyond the twins, as other relatives are said to be involved in ongoing arguments about which holdings belong to whom, and whether earlier payments to family members should count as gifts or buyouts that settle dividend rights.
The case has shone a light on how little is publicly known about private companies in the country, where ownership decisions are often taken quietly and financial details are rarely shared.
The exact calculation behind the $43.51million figure and the timeline for payment have not been fully detailed. But the order shows the Judge found that money was owed, giving the sisters a stronger position as the dispute enters its next stage.
An appeal or enforcement fight could run for months, but the ruling has already changed the balance inside the family and inside the company, as a disagreement that began over missing dividends has now become one of the most closely watched business disputes in the country.
Meanwhile, the court case has put the family into the limelight, subjecting it to public scrutiny.
Oriental Energy is a private Nigerian exploration and production firm with key offshore interests in the Niger Delta.
Built over decades, it has been a cornerstone of Indimi’s business profile and one of the better known privately held players in Nigeria’s upstream industry, operating in a sector where ownership structures often sit behind closed doors and financial details are rarely disclosed publicly.
Indimi, an oil magnate with significant interests across energy and finance, is also a public figure whose wealth and influence place him among the country’s most prominent businessmen.
That profile has helped pull the family dispute into the public eye, with the amounts involved and the identities of the parties turning what might have been a private inheritance quarrel into a national talking point.
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