Court hears NBA Suit today

A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory presided over by Justice Halilu will commence hearing today on the suit  between chief Joe-Kyari Gadzama, SAN and the Registered Trustees and officers of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) .

The claimant, Gadzama had on August 14, approached the FCT High court for reliefs including a declaration  that the 2016 Nigerian Bar Association Election as it relates to the office/position of the President held on 30th and 31st July 2016 under the supervision of the then President of the association, Augustine Alegeh, SAN and NBA Electoral Committee chairman, Ken Mozia, SAN and his committee which purportedly produced Abubakar Balarabe Mahmoud, SAN as President, was in violation and disregard of the mandatory provisions of the NBA Constitution 2015, Election Guidelines set down for the said Election fell short of established standards and international best practices, thereby making the said Election null, void and of no effect whatsoever.

However after hearing interlocutory applications and preliminary objections on the matter during the vacation of the FCT High courts, vacation Judge, Justice Ademola Adeniji handed the file back to the Chief Judge (CJ) for assignment to another Judge for hearing and determination of the matter. The matter was recently assigned to Justice Halilu’s court, at the Jabi High Court.

Since the defendants refused to file their defense all these while, chief Gadzama filed a motion for judgment in default of appearance and or an order for accelerated hearing of the suit since time is of essence because the tenure for NBA presidency which is the subject matter of the suit is only two years

In a Counter Affidavit in opposition to the motion, Yunus Ustaz, SAN leading other lawyers for the Registered Trustees prayed the Court to dismiss the motion for being frivolous and lacking in merit.

He said, “The Plaintiff filed the originating processes in the suit on the 16th of August and served his clients during the Court’s vacation and that by the Rules of the Court, time for filing and service of pleadings does not run during the annual vacation of  the court.

“The court resumes from its annual vacation on September 12, 2016, my clients are still within time to file their statement of defense as their 14 days to file same started counting when the court resumed from vacation.

“We filed a motion challenging the jurisdiction of the court to hear the matter, that the court as presently constituted is not competent to hear this matter” Ustaz Usman stated.

Other defendants in the matter have not filed any statement of defense or motion in respect of the matter, possibly they are buying time in a bid to frustrate the hearing of the substantive suit. And this may be dangerous for a lawyer to try to frustrate a matter through legal technicalities.