The Court of Appeal in Abuja has granted leave to former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon and others to challenge the judgment of a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the Barewa Old Boys Association (BOBA)’s land dispute.
The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, who is also a member of BOBA, including the school’s old boys association, are challenging the lower court judgment.
The court further dismissed the preliminary objection filed by Eagle Aluminium Industries Limited seeking to stop BOBA from filing a cross appeal.
In a unanimous ruling, a three-member panel of the appellate court held that the objection of Eagle Aluminium was an abuse of court process.
Justice Peter Chudi Obiorah, who delivered the ruling, held that the objection was pre-emptive and presumptuous as it was against the rules of the court.
“There is no provision in the Court of Appeal Rules, 2021, where a party served with a motion on notice and who wishes to oppose the application is permitted to do so by the filing of preliminary objection.
“Parties are not allowed to invent their own rules at their whims and caprice,” the judge said.
The ruling was endorsed by Justice Hamma Akawu Barka and Justice Ishaq Mohammed Sani.
The land, which was in the trust of the Gen. Gowon-led Board of Trustees (BoT), was sometime in 2007, reallocated to Haida Properties.
In 2009, the same plot of land was reallocated to Eagle Aluminum belonging to Mr. Linus Ukachukwu unknown to the BoT of BOBA.
The alumni body, with the ruling, will join Eagle Aluminium Ltd as well as the Minister of the FCT and the FCTA in challenging the December 2020 judgment of the lower court that conferred ownership of the disputed 6,500 square meters’ land on Haida Properties Limited.
The Court of Appeal had earlier declined to endorse a bilateral settlement agreement reached between Eagle Aluminium and Haida Properties to jointly develop the disputed land because the settlement agreement did not include other parties in the land dispute.
The alumni association, with Gowon, the Sultan of Sokoto and Justice Lawal Uwais (rtd.) on its BoT, had also filed a petition against a lawyer, Stella Oyiugo, at the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee for allegedly representing the association in court without authorisation.
The Inspector-General of Police had also filed criminal charges against the suspects indicted by the investigation report on the same land deal, but the suspects are yet to be arraigned.
