By Executive Editor, Judiciary. (Advocatenewsng.com)
The Administrators of the Estate of late business mogul, Chief Sonny Odogwu, (and other companies associated to him) have asked the Federal High court, Lagos to decline jurisdiction on a suit filed by Access Bank Plc, seeking to take over the late businessman’s project financed property over alleged unpaid debt.
They made the application in a preliminary objection filed by their counsel, Chief Anthony Idigbe, SAN, at the court sitting before Justice Daniel Osiagor, in response to the suit brought against them by the bank.
The Administrators, Kenneth Odogwu, alongside late Odogwu’s companies, Robert Dyson & Diket Limited and SIO Properties Limited, and The Registrar of Title, Federal Land Registry are the respondents/applicants in the suit filed against them by the bank and Siete Trading Limited.
Access Bank have dragged the respondents before the court in a suit filed by its counsel Mr. Kemi Balogun, SAN and marked FHC/L/CS/1955/2021, for an alleged N50 billion debt.
The respondents/applicants in a motion on notice lodged before the court are asking for an order dismissing Access Bank’s case or in the alternative striking out the suit for want of Jurisdiction.
The respondents/applicants said their objection to the suit was due to abuse of court process and that the plaintiffs lack the locus standi to institute the Instant suit.
They also stated that the plaintiffs’ suit did not disclose any reasonable cause of action against them and that the court had become functus officio in respect of the Judgment delivered in Suit No FHC/L/CS/156/2017 and therefore lacks the jurisdiction to entertain the instant suit seeking to set aside the judgment of a court of coordinate jurisdiction.
Continuing the respondents/applicants also stated that the entire plaintiffs’ suit is frivolous, vexatious, malicious, tantamount to abuse of the Judicial process, as it is an attempt to use the Court to perfect fraud, adding that no leave of court was obtained before fling the suit seeking to set aside a consent judgment.
They added that the action was commenced through a wrong procedure, as the subject matter of the suit is land, which is outside the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court, stating that there was no proper service of the originating processes on them.
However, Justice Osiagor has fixed February 4, 2022, for hearing of all applications and the substantive suit.
