It was a pitiable sight on
Monday, January 5, 2015 seeing the immediate past Vice Chancellor of the University
of Benin (UNIBEN), Prof.Osayuki Oshodin, at his official residence in GRA,
Benin City, as bulldozers were unleashed on the building on the orders of Edo
State government. It was about 5pm that day when the bulldozers went to work.
Oshodin, who was relaxing after the day’s job, was shocked.
The mission of the bulldozers
was straight forward: Enforce the order of the High Court, Benin, which
declared that the about 18 properties given to the University of Benin in 1970
by the government of the defunct Midwest State, led by Dr Samuel Ogbemudia,
were the properties of the Edo government and not that of UNIBEN.
The properties were given to the university by Ogbemudia to assist the
staff of the university since it was then a brand new university on Benin soil.
Ever since then, the properties have been within the possession of the
university. It was, however, learnt that the Prof.Osarhiemen Osunbor
administration started the process of recovering the properties after it was
alleged that they were attempts by some staff of the UNIBEN to sell them. It
was said that the Osunbor administration published a caveat emptor where the
state government urged members of the pubic not to buy any of the properties.
That process of recovery was on until the administration of Governor Adams
Oshiomhole came in, in 2008.
However, tension between the
university and the state government heightened after the High Court, Benin,
presided over by Justice E.O.Ahamioge, ruled in favour of the state government
on December 16, 2014. UNIBEN had dragged the state government to court and
canvassed five issues but the court rejected all of them and ruled that it
should vacate the properties after it failed to prove ownership of the
properties.
Dissatisfied with the
judgment, the university reported filed an appeal and application for stay of
execution of the judgment. But the state government on Monday rolled out
bulldozers on the disputed properties and Oshodin and others became the
victims. The former UNIBEN VC, who described the action as illegal and wicked,
narrated his ordeal: “I was in the house here when I saw over 2,000 people from
Edo State government who came to demolish my house. I was shocked because there
was no notice from anybody.
Even if you want to enforce a
court order, is it with this large number of people? Apart from the fact that
we have filed an appeal against the judgment, why don’t you wait till the
appeal is heard? What the governor is doing is illegal and that is very bad. As
a teacher, what I have are my books, including some which I used during my
primary school days. They have destroyed most of them, no opportunity to pack
out my things. I have not seen this kind of wickedness before and that is why I
am shocked”.
Also speaking, counsel to the
university, Hannibal Uwaifo, narrated: “After the judgment on December 16, 2014
which gave the state government ownership of the properties, on the 23rd,
unidentified agents of the state government mercilessly beat up and forcefully
threw out the staff of the university. We are worried because of the use of
people like this to enforce a court judgment. One of the reasons we are always
reminded that we live in a civilized society is the presence of the regular
courts by which conflicting claims between members of the society are ideally
independently and impartially resolved. We have pending appeal and motion for
stay execution before the court, yet the state government went on to destroy
the properties and that is illegal”.
But the Edo State Attorney
General and Commissioner for Justice, Henry Idahagbon, said they did not
demolish UNIBEN properties but only took possession of Edo State government
properties based on a court judgment of December 16, 2014. He went on: “First
of all, there was no stay of execution and clearly we did not engage in any
demolition of property. What we did was to take possession of government
property after judgement was validly given by a competent court of
jurisdiction. It is a 65-page judgement delivered on December 16, 2014 wherein
the judge asked UNIBEN to deliver forthwith possession to the Edo State
government.
“UNIBEN took government to
court. They canvassed five issues and they lost each and every issue they
canvassed. They said the government of Midwestern Nigeria gave them the
documents. But no documents whatsoever showed that the land was transferred to
them. They have appealed, there was no copy of stay of execution. An appeal
does not act as stay of execution. They are just making noise. As I speak,
the four respondents involved in this case, which include the Edo State
government, the governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, the Attorney-General of the
State and the Commissioner for Lands, have not been served with any court
processes since the 16th day of December, 2014 when judgment was given.
‘I will resign if…’
“I also want to state
categorically that if the University of Benin and their counsel are able to
show proof of service of any application for stay of execution of judgment on
any of the four respondents, I Henry Idahagbon will resign as Attorney-General
of Edo State and go back to my village to farm. They may have filed, that I am
not aware because, after filing, they have to serve. It is the service of court
processes that invokes the jurisdiction of court. Until a party is served, the
party is known before court and since the 16th of December when judgment
was given, the case at the High Court effectively ended. If they are starting
any appellate process, the four people, that is, the respondents mentioned
earlier, must be served personally and none of us has been served.” He further
clarified that what was done by the state government was not a demolition
exercise but a possession exercise in pursuant to the court judgment, stressing
that the court gave judgment that UNIBEN and the occupants of the buildings
should deliver possession forthwith.
He said, “Every hour after the
delivery of that judgment, they ought to have parked their properties and given
up the possession, but instead, they were insinuating that they are Federal
Government, that they have a hundred thousand students. For goodness sake, this
country is still being run by the rule of law and no institution of government,
no matter how powerful, no matter the number of persons under your control, can
be bigger than the government or the law. Those living in the lodge were given
quit notices since 2011 and the court rightly held that they were not tenants
to Edo State government but that they were licencee”.
He said, in 1981, UNIBEN had
gone to court on the same matter where in the late Justice Ugbobine also gave
judgment that the properties did not belong to the University of Benin.
Protest
The demolition of the
properties elicited condemnation from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in
Edo, UNIBEN students and members of the university’s Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU). The irate students burnt down a luxury bus belonging to
the Edo City Transport, and blocked the Benin-Lagos Road for several hours.
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Society