Raise alarm over handcuffing, ill-treatment, custodial access and procedural integrity
A civil society organisation, the Initiative for Media Development and Social Impact (IMEDSI), has raised fresh alarm over the alleged threat to life and ill-treatment of the detained oil executive, Mr Ufoma Joseph Immanuel, over the disputed $1.5 million oil deal shares.
In a strongly worded statement issued in Abuja on Monday, IMEDSI, through its spokesperson, Ms Onose Oseyi, raised these concerns after receiving reports that Immanuel has been handcuffed to his hospital bed at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), with correctional guards said to be preventing him from moving about despite his doctors’ advice that he do so to avoid blood clots.
The development, the group said, compounds a growing list of concerns, including an alleged threat to Immanuel’s life, restricted access to his lawyers and family, and lingering questions over full compliance with a Federal High Court order for his medical treatment, that have prompted it to renew its appeal to President Bola Tinubu, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the judiciary for a fair trial and humane treatment for the Chappal Energies founder.
Immanuel, founder and chief executive of Chappal Energies, is standing trial before the Lagos State Special Offences Court over allegations by the EFCC that he and his company, Intermediate Investment Holdings Limited (IIHL), obtained about $1.5 million from businessman Adebisi Adebutu and R28 Holdings Limited under false pretences. He has pleaded not guilty.
But IMEDSI, in the statement, said its intervention was “not intended to determine Mr Immanuel’s guilt or innocence, nor to interfere with the judicial process,” insisting instead that the state remains obligated to protect his life, dignity and health while the matter is before the court.
In an update issued this morning, IMEDSI said its representatives who visited Immanuel at the hospital found him handcuffed to the bed, unable to move despite his doctors’ advice that he needs to walk periodically to prevent blood clots, a recognised risk for hospitalised patients confined to bed for extended periods.
“This is inhuman and degrading treatment for a man who has not been convicted of any offence, and it now stands as a direct threat to his life and health, on top of everything else he has endured,” Oseyi said, demanding the immediate removal of the restraint and a public explanation of who authorised it.
According to the group, the family’s gravest concern remains a reported threat to Immanuel’s life. The family said he had approached the Department of State Services (DSS) in February 2026, to report threats allegedly made against him by Adebutu, only to be detained by the agency himself and later transferred into EFCC custody, a chronology IMEDSI said: “deserves independent clarification.”
More seriously, the family alleged that during a settlement meeting, Adebutu told them Immanuel would die in Kirikiri if he did not surrender his shares in the disputed venture.
IMEDSI was careful to stress that it was not presenting the allegation as fact and that it was serious enough to warrant an independent probe, noting that the family had also raised the matter with the British High Commission, which reportedly sent a consular official to check on Immanuel’s welfare at the Kirikiri Correctional Centre.
The group also disclosed that although Immanuel has now been moved to LASUTH for treatment, in line with a Federal High Court order, his family and lawyers are still being denied access to him, and he has not been allowed to consult his doctors in private, while he is handcuffed to his bed.
Correctional officers, IMEDSI said, remain inside or within hearing distance of the consultation room throughout, asking pointedly: “What medical or security justification requires custodial officers to remain within the consultation space itself, rather than immediately outside it?
The group said the case was adjourned until Thursday, September 10, 2026; and that its demand had moved well beyond simply securing Immanuel’s transfer to hospital to include uninterrupted treatment, confidential consultations, family and legal access, the removal of restraints inconsistent with medical advice, and independent confirmation of his diagnosis and treatment plan.
IMEDSI further alleged that Immanuel had repeatedly been denied bail and was, on one occasion, removed from LASUTH in the middle of the night, incidents it said: “sit uneasily with the presumption of innocence.”
“A criminal allegation does not amount to a conviction. Remand does not amount to imprisonment after trial. Custody does not extinguish dignity,” the statement read.
On the substance of the case, IMEDSI said it would not rehearse evidence now being tested before the trial court, but argued that the matter was, at its heart, a commercial disagreement over shares.
The group noted that two Nigerian courts, the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory and the Federal High Court, had already characterised the underlying dispute as a civil shareholding matter, and said the $1.5 million investment was made toward the acquisition of an asset which was completed, publicly announced and is reported to be in production, while R28 continues to assert an equity interest arising from the same transaction.
“If an investment achieved its stated purpose, and the investor claims the shares connected to it, the public is entitled to ask a straightforward question: what precisely is the false pretence alleged, and where is it said to lie?” the statement asked, stressing that the answer was for the trial court alone and that the group took no position on guilt or innocence.
IMEDSI said Adebutu and R28 “cannot have it both ways”: the same Term Sheet at issue in the Nigerian case has reportedly also been relied upon by R28 in parallel proceedings in Mauritius to support its claimed shareholding, a contradiction the group wants the EFCC to reconcile.
The statement also drew attention to a separate, high-stakes corporate dispute in Mauritius, where IIHL holds a 34.5 per cent stake in Chappal Energies Mauritius. The sequence, the group said, was troubling: Immanuel was detained on charges arising from the complaint of Adebutu and R28, and it was while he was held, unable to act for IIHL, that a proposed $100 million rights issue advanced on the strength of a funding proposal from R28, one that could have handed R28 a controlling stake of close to 85 per cent, at a meeting from which IIHL was recused.
The Supreme Court of Mauritius has since stepped in to restrain the transaction pending arbitration, and the group asked whether the timing of a corporate manoeuvre of that magnitude, advanced while the company’s founder was in detention on charges brought at the instance of the counterparty advancing it, could be satisfactorily explained.
IMEDSI appealed directly to President Tinubu “as the nation’s foremost constitutional authority” to ensure Immanuel’s rights are protected, and called on the judiciary, the EFCC and the Correctional Service to ensure court orders are obeyed, that restraints inconsistent with medical advice are removed, and that custodial security is not used to justify denying a detainee access to counsel, family or confidential medical care.
The group also urged the National Human Rights Commission and other civil society bodies to monitor the case independently. It urged the media and the public to avoid trial by publicity. “No allegation, no commercial dispute and no criminal prosecution should place a Nigerian citizen beyond the protection of the law,” the statement concluded.
IMEDSI describes itself as a civil society organisation working to advance governance, human rights, development, peacebuilding and access to justice across Africa.
