THE NATION WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2015
36
SOUTHWEST REPORT
Ayangburen stool: Court to rule on May 22
J
USTICE Akintunde Savage of a Lagos High Court sitting in Ikorodu will on May 22, 2015 rule application seeking to nullify the selection of Odofin of Ikorodu, Chief Kabiru Shotobi as the new Ayangburen by the king makers. Justice Savage, at the end of a fivehour sitting, announced the date for the ruling last week after hearing the arguments and submissions of counsels to the various parties in the suit. The applicants, Mathew Adetayo Shodipo, Omobo Sokelu, Shakiru Shodipo, Nurudeen Fakomaya and Albert Aina had filed a suit, IKD/ 454GCM/2014 (for themselves and on behalf of the Lambo branch of the Lasunwon ruling house of Ikorodu) and through an originating summon challenged the nomination of Shotobi by the kingmakers as the oba-elect of the ancient town. Joined as respondents in the suit are Ezekiel Shodipo, Tajudeen Odofin (for themselves and on behalf of the Adegorushen branch of the Lasunwon ruling house the Odofin of Ikorodu, Chief Kabiru Shotobi; the Olisa and regent of Ikorodu, Chief Zacheus Oludele Odusoga; Solomade of Ikorodu, Chief Afolabi Adekayaoja; Apena of Ikorodu, Chief Karimu Ore and Oponuwa of Ikorodu, Chief Jacob Kolawole Adaraloye (for themselves and on behalf of the kingmakers. Others are Ikorodu Local Government; Ikorodu division of council of Obas and Chiefs; Secretary, Ikorodu Chieftaincy Committee, Ikorodu Local government: Lagos State Ministry of Chieftaincy Affairs and Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, L a g o s State. At the resumed sitting of the court last week, counsel to the applicants John Osighala told the trial judge, that filed several affidavits, counter affidavits and further affidavits in response to various papers filed by other counsels in the matter. Osighala said they were seeking powers of the court to determine six issues raised in their originating summon dated December 29, 2014, which was supported by a 22 point affidavit, and to which was attached three exhibits marked A, B, and C. He said the court has judicial and inherent powers under section 6(6) of the 1999 constitution to determine the questions raised. He said if the six questions were answered in the affirmative, then the court should grant them the five reliefs sought which he said were hinged on the affirmation of the six issues raised before the court. Osighala said “it is unarguable that exhibit A, which is the consent judgement delivered by Justice Habeeb Habiru (now a Justice of the Court of Appeal) in suit, is an enrolled order of the court, It is clear and unambiguous.” He submitted that the court should look at Exhibit A and other judgement of a Lagos High Court and Court of Appeal marked exhibit 10 and 11 in other papers filed before the court, in reaching decision on the proceedings in the court adding, “the court should
•Shotobi
By Adebisi Onanuga
give them holistic and natural effect”. He explained that the “effect” in Exhibit A was that parties in that suit are the same in the on-going suit before he court and that they include privies, agents and ancestors in title. The lawyer posited that it was also not in dispute that the respondents did not appeal against the decisions in the consent judgement marked exhibit A and therefore “it is binding on all parties” adding that parties in the suit have been caught by the doctrines of “estoppel”. “In the circumstance and in line with the principle and doctrine of reciprocity, we urge your lordship to answer the questions in affirmative and grant the reliefs sought”, he stated. Osighala noted that the counsels to the respondents, in order not to be caught by the doctrines of estoppels, raised several issues in their counter affidavits to the originating summon and that he dealt with all of them. He pointed out that one cardinal issues raised in all the counter affidavits was the difference between an obaship and a chieftaincy title and that he responded to the issue in three-fold. He argued that exhibit A which is the consent judgement simply said “the next available chieftaincy” adding that all other legal arguments being raised by counsels to the various respondents on the difference between “obaship and chieftaincy” was an attempt to re-write the consent judgement in suit number IKD/57/2007 stressing, “exhibit A is clear and unambiguous and it stated “the next available chieftaincy title to the family”. He said there are only three titles available to the Lasunwon Ruling House of Ikorodu and listed them to include Ayangburen of Ikorodu, Odofin of Ikorodu and Otunba of Ikorodu. He said the third respondent, Chief Kabiru Shotobi, having ascended the position of Odofin of Ikorodu upon the consent judgement, and that upon the demise of Ayangburen on August 22, 2014, it then means that the next available title to the family is Ayangburen of Ikorodu. Osighala posited that it was wrong for the other counsels to now want to re-write the history of the fami-
ly by exempting the title of Ayangburen from the titles available to the family. “The consent judgement listed the three titles available to the family. So the next available is the Ayangburen of Ikorodu.” Referring to a 1958 Declaration filed by the counsel to the 11th and 12th respondents, S.A. Quadri, he argued that Section 4(2) under Chieftaincy Law, in spite of amendments, was still very applicable to the matter in court saying that the Customary Law regulates selection of Ayangburen and that the subheading sees the Ayangburen as a Chieftaincy. He also referred to a Supreme Court of Nigeria judgement in Arowolo versus Akapo case which was cited in all written addresses to counter affidavits before the court as encapsulating obaship as chief in generic word. He submitted “paragraph 4.03 of the written address submitted that the word “Obaship” is generic and so held by the Supreme Court that in Arowolo versus Akapo suit. So arguments canvassed that there is a difference between obaship and chieftaincy is not valid”. Citing Onogbe(JSC) to buttress his argument, he said, “It follows therefore that before a person is selected for the position of oba, he must first be presented by the ruling house” adding that all arguments being canvassed by the respondents, particularly second respondent, clearly showed that they are caught by the principle of estoppel for now”. He stressed that if the defendants had anything, they would have appealed against the 2007 judgement of the court and urge the court to answer his client’s prayers in affirmative and grant the reliefs sought. Counsel to the first and third respondents, Gbenga Hassan, opposed the application saying that the applicants were merely seeking to interprete the 2007 judgement of the court to suit them. He formulated his arguments on three main issues and submitted that the court lack the power to interprete the judgement. Hassan argued that the claims of the applicants are incompetent having failed to exhaust all remedies before coming to court, explaining that there are mediatory procedures they should have fol-
lowed which cannot be waived. He said since they have failed to explore the mediatory role, the court should dismiss their application. On the second issue, he argued that exhibit A clearly showed that it was chieftaincy title that was conceded and not obaship position. Relying on arguments canvassed in his counter affidavit, he said it was clear that the next available chieftaincy title was Otunba of Ikorodu and not oba of Ikorodu. He submitted that the grand norm regulating chieftaincy titles in the state now is the Obas and Chieftaincy Laws of Lagos State and that section 2 of the law defines chieftaincy titles as relating to the immediate community and obaship to paramount ruler of a native community recognized by the government. “For the applicants to say that chieftaincy and obaship are same is misconceived. I therefore urged the court to discountenance it”, he said citing the decided case of Rabiu versus Kano State government to buttress his arguments that obaship and chieftaincy titles are not the same. He posited that the first and third respondents are clearly not in breach of the consent judgement tagged exhibit A and that “applicants are too ambitious to misconstrue the purport of the consent judgement” and urged the court to hold that they were not in breach of exhibit A. He argued that the reliefs sought from court by the applicants are baseless and unfounded in law and intended to mislead the court. On the third issue, Hassan submitted that the applicants are estopelled having waived their rights during the selection process. According to him, “by the action of the applicants to jointly participated in the selection process, they have waived their right as they did not complain at selection stage”. He said exhibit C, which is the minutes of the family meeting, showed that the applicants participated in the selection process and did not object to the process emphasizing , “they cannot approbate and reprobate now having not objected to the process”. He further submitted that exhibit A is a contractual agreement between the parties and urged the court to hold that they can no longer complain at this stage of the process and that the court should dismiss the application. At this stage, Hassan informed and referred the court to a rejoinder filed before the court on points of law, dated March 4, 2015. But Osighala challenged the competence of the rejoinder, arguing that it was not known to the adjudicatory system and that there is no provision for it within the rules of the court. “To file a process termed a rejoinder is an abuse of court process. I object to it and should be struck out”, he submitted before the court. But Hassan, citing decided case of Ojukwu versus Onyeador 1991 7 NWLR part 203, argued that fresh issues raised by applicants can be responded to by respondents by way of rejoinders and urged the court to discountenanced the arguments of counsel to the applicants that the rejoinder be disregarded.
Owo: Fear grips Ondo town as robbers threaten revenge •Continued from page 30
shouting, ‘where is the money, where is the money? Give us our money. We then gave them money. One of them came and said ‘if you people are not careful, we will kill you now, we have killed one of your colleagues; so you people should cooperate.’ They brought out dynamite and blew up the ATM machine and vaults. “They asked me to drive the car and block the road and the Bank Manager, Abiodun Olasemojo, Femi Olupona, Ademola Oyedokun (Head Marketing) had been killed outside. We later heard that it was soldiers that rescued us. The operation lasted about three hours. We were all in the room hiding till some soldiers came to rescue us. We heard that soldiers were alerted and went after them. I was surprised how they killed Ademola for when he was approached by one of the robbers and asked for official car key, we complied. They asked Ademola to lie flat and asked me to drive. When I was driving out, one of the armed robbers asked me to stop again or he would fire me. They had already hijacked the police APC. They shot from the APC into the car I drove out. When the robber who was with me saw that my head had been covered with blood, he asked me to go inside the bank. It was when they had all gone and we went out that we saw those killed. Recounting how it happened, Afolabi said: “The robbers started robbing at the same time. We heard that one was captured alive while 26 were arrested. They did not wear mask but nobody could look them in the face. Their ages ranged between 20 and 26. “Presently, some wounded ones are still nursing their wounds in the hospital, while Yinka Bolanle (30), was shot in the belly and still receiving treatment at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC). Bolanle was shot in the belly when he went to the First Bank to collect money. Now, over 15 victims are still being hospitalised in different locations.” Why they struck Unsubstantiated claims revealed that the reason behind the robbery was that news filtered in that some millions of naira were brought to the banks by a political party which was to be shared among supporters on the eve of the presidential election. Another source said the robbers, having succeeded in raiding Ikare some months back, planned an attack on Owo. The attack was neatly carried out in a commando style as they were said to be over 50 robbers with different types of vehicles including Jeeps and Hilux vehicles, while they hijacked police armoured tanks and started shooting from the vehicles.
Anguish, pain as UCH doctors’ strike shuts down hospital Continued from page 30
agement to fulfil their demands, threatening that they will not call off the strike. Meanwhile, Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Prof. Temitope Alonge, had denied having doctors with casual status in the hospital. Alonge said that some of the issues raised were internal matters that had been resolved, adding that the issue of salaries and wages that are due to workers are not the prerogative of the ministries. ”Funding for the hospital is coming directly from the federal government and when you prepare the budget, it captures specific part of personnel cost, but the issue of Skipping doesn’t exist in the calender of the federal government. When we had a meeting with the resident doctors we explained to them that the budget of 2014 which was approved in 2015 only has the issue of the correction of anomalies of relativity and the issue of Skipping was
not captured. It is the prerogative of the National Salary and Wages Commission. So, the issue of employment is resident in the Head of Service and what the resident doctors presented to us was a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). A letter is an intent and does not carry much weight as an MOU. The next one is a circular which is something that has been agreed up and has received the backing of government, it can be issued by government establishment on behalf of government. What we got from the resident doctors was an MOU and not a circular. ‘’In the circular that we have from the National Salary and Wages Commission, there is nothing like skipping for doctors. So, whatever conflict that has arisen, the only body that is empowered to provide an answer is the National Salary Wages Commission. You don’t pay what you don’t have. No Chief Medical Director (CMD),can unilaterally wake up and change the salary table. He said any CMD in the
country that has paid the Skipping allowance will be summoned next week to explain to the Ministry of Health where he got the money from, which salary table he is using and who gave the approval. Alonge assured the people of Oyo State and Nigeria that he does not have any power to withhold salaries that has been appropriated to any healthcare worker. Also, the consultants, under the aegis of Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria(MDCAN) rose from an emergency congress over the weekend, urging both the striking doctors and the hospital management to sheath their swords for the sake of the patients.The consultants equally revealed that MDCAN has set machinery in motion to address “the contentious issues in collaboration with resident doctors and UCH Management.”A statement by MDCAN General Secretary for UCH, Dr. Victor Makanjuola after the congress said the consultants considered all issues being raised by the resident doctors, declaring them(the issues) as legitimate and urging the hospital management to speedily address them.