The much-anticipated out-of-court settlement over a
disputed parcel of land between the former First Lady, Hajiya Turai Yar‘Adua,
and her successor, Dame Patience Jonathan, has collapsed, as both parties
failed to shift grounds. It was learnt from inside sources that Mrs.
Yar‘Adua rejected the offers of two alternative plots located at the Central
Area District, near Akwa Ibom Lodge and another one situated on Airport Road,
Wawa District. The Central Area plots, with N0: 818, measures 5,333 square
metres, while the one on Airport Road, marked No: 3,367, measures 2. 1 hectares.
The land tussle is between the Women and Youth
Empowerment Foundation, WOYEF, a nongovernmental organisation, NGO, being
promoted by Turai and the one in which Dame Jonathan is the chairperson,
African First Ladies Peace Centre.
The centre is planning to erect its secretariat on the
land.
At the botched meeting, which held at the Ministry of
Justice, representatives of WOYEF from the law firm of Adamu, Ahmed, Ibrahim
& Co. had offered to waive all the costs incurred in the ongoing litigation
if the Certificate of Occupancy, C of O, and other title documents were
restored fully.
They predicated their rejection of the two plots of land
on the basis that the first plot lies within a green area, while the second is
an unapproved layout of the city.
The alternative parcel of land was offered Turai’s NGO by
the Federal Capital Development Authority, FCDA, a department of the Federal
Capital Territory Administration that is responsible for the allocation and
revocation of land in the FCT.
National Mirror gathered that the warring parties would
soon return to court to continue the legal battle in suit number
FCT/HC/CV/2591/2010.
The Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF, and Minister
of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke, had approached an Abuja High Court for an
out-ofcourt settlement.
Adoke, who is named as the fourth defendant in the suit,
told the court, presided over by Justice Peter Affen, that the Federal
Government wanted an amicable settlement of the dispute, saying all parties had
promised to explore the option.
Other defendants in the suit are the FCT Minister,
Senator Bala Mohammed, the Federal Capital Territory Administration and the
Abuja Geographic Information System, AGIS.
The suit is in respect of the revocation of Plot No. 1347
located at the Cadastral Zone A00, which measures approximately 1.84 hectares
and bounded by beacons numbers PB 48, PB 1596, PB 1599 and PB 6827.
The disputed land is covered by an accepted Offer of
Right of Occupancy dated February 19, 2010. It lies in-between NANET Suites and
Federal Secretariat, Shehu Shagari Way, Central Area District, Abuja.
Already, Mrs. Jonathan has hosted all African First
Ladies on the land between July 24 and 27, 2012, even as work has commenced on
the development of the edifice.
The revocation, which Mohammed said was done “in
overriding public interest”, formed the basis of the suit and the subsequent
interlocutory order “restraining the defendants whether individually or
collectively by themselves, their servants, employees, agents, privies,
subsidiaries, departments, agencies, officers or otherwise howsoever from
acting on the notice of revocation.”
Moving the motion on behalf of the AGF for settlement,
Baba Saidu told the trial judge that: “there are arrangements to settle the
matter out of court and we have reached out to counsel on all sides. In the
circumstance, we urge your Lordship to grant us convenient adjournment to
report back to this honourable court.”
He had expressed confidence that fruitful results would
be achieved from the proposed dialogue option, against the backdrop of the
interest shown by the plaintiff and other defendants, when they were
approached.
The plaintiff’s counsel, Mr. Innocent Lagi and the
counsel to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd defendants, Mr. Felix Ibanga, had expressed
their readiness to settle the matter out of court.
They told the court that the AGF had actually reached out
to them on the need to cooperate to end the rift.
Consequent upon the motion, Justice Affen adjourned the
matter till September 24 “for report of settlement.”
Justice Affen had earlier turned down an attempt made by
Lagi to move an exparte motion for the leave of court to serve defence forms 48
and 49 (contempt charge and committal to prison).
The foiled contempt charge was consequent upon a
subsisting order of interlocutory injunction restraining the defendants from
acting on the notice of revocation dated November 2, 2011.
Adoke had filed a motion on notice brought pursuant to
Order 7 Rule 7 (2) of the FCT (Civil Procedure Rules 2004), where he urged the
court to discharge the restraining order, saying “the previous allocations were
duly revoked and a fresh allocation made out to the African Peace Mission in
overriding interest.”
He also contended that “the invitations to the members of
the African Union’s First Ladies Peace Mission had already gone out and it
would be most humiliating for Nigeria in the diplomatic circle to make an
about-turn at this time, given the time constraint to effect any other changes
in venue.”
Accordingly, the AGF had formulated two issues for
determination to wit:
“Whether this honourable court may not set aside its
injunction where such injunction is against public interest or policy;
“Whether the court is deprived of its jurisdiction to
determine a matter where there is a breach of the fundamental principle of fair
hearing.”