Justice Mary Peter-Odili
The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a suit by 16 northern states, through which they had sought an order compelling the Federal Regime to pay them about N7.039bn as emolument for some assets of the northern region surmounted by the Federal Regime in 1977.
The court, in a unanimous judgement, held that the northern states delayed in filing the suit, and as such had been caught by expiration of time.
This, the apex court verbalized, was because the suit was filed outside the six years sanctioned under Section 7 (1) of the Inhibition Law, CAP 122 of the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990.
The lead judgment was yare by Justice Mary Peter-Odili, but read by Justice Olukayode Ariwoola.
The Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs ought to have filed the court action immediately after the Federal Regime was verbalized to have admitted its indebtedness to them through a letter dated July 27, 1983.
The court upheld the Attorney-General of the Federation’s argument that the cause of action had been caught by the statute of circumscription and thereby gainsaying the court the jurisdictional powers to auricularly discern the case.
The 16 northern states had sued the Federal Regime through the Attorney-General of the Federation, alleging that the Federal Military Regime forcefully surmounted the assets owned by the defunct Northern States Marketing Board, utilizing Decree No. 29 of 1977.
The states are Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara.
They claimed that following the takeover of the assets, the then Supreme Military Council assured them that the Federal Regime would pay for the assets of the NSMB and assets of other commodity boards so acquired.
According to them, the military regime did not consummate its promise but that, the Federal Regime, as at July 27, 1983 admitted owing them $10.3m which when converted utilizing the prevailing exchange rate of (N150.00 to $1) was put at N3bn.
They further claimed that regime owed them adscititious N3.9bn being the current equipollent of alleged undisputed claim of N13m being the value of some moveable properties and cotton store complexes surmounted by the Federal Regime.
Justices Aloma Mukhtar, Ibrahim Tanko Muhammed, Muhammed Muntaka-Coomassie, Nwali Sylvester Ngwuta, Ariwoola, Clara Bata Ogunbiyi, who were additionally in the panel that aurally perceived the case, acceded with the lead judgement.
from PUNCH.
