Controller General Of Prisons & Ors V. Elema & Anor (2021)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

EMMANUEL AKOMAYE AGIM, J.S.C. 

This appeal was commenced on 9/2/2018, when the appellants herein filed a notice of appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal in appeal no. CA/B/169/2006 delivered on 22/11/2017, reversing the decision of the trial Federal High Court at Benin in Suit No. FHC/CS/109/1998, refusing to award special damages to the respondents.

The notice of appeal contains one ground of appeal. With leave of Court, the notice was amended. The amended notice of appeal contains 3 grounds of appeal.

Both sides filed, exchange and adopted their respective briefs as follows – appellant’s brief and respondents brief.

The appellant’s brief raised the following issues for determination:

1. Whether the judgment in respect of Suit No. CA/169/2006 was tenable due to the fact that the Federal High Court in suit No. FHC/B/CS/109/1998 lacked the original jurisdiction to entertain the suit? This issue is related to Grounds 1.
2. Assuming but not conceding that appeal no. CA/169/2006 was proper and legal before the Court of Appeal, did this position still hold from the date the respondents received compensation in “total satisfaction” of the judgment debt in respect of FHC/B/CS/109/1998 to when judgment was rendered on the 22nd of November 2017? This issue is related to Grounds 2.
3. Furthermore, was it not recondite for the Honourable Justices of the Court of Appeal to had awarded special damages to the respondents without averring to the findings of the Court of first instance that the evidence of PW3 was manifestly not credible yet the Court relied upon same to award special damages? This issue is related to Grounds 3.
4. Whether it is proper and equitable for the 1st appellant to suffer tremendous monetary and property loss due to the failure of his various counsel to had properly custodied document evidencing payment of in total satisfaction of the subject matter and also mistakenly failed to bring the found document to the attention of the Court. This issue is related to Grounds 2.

The respondent’s brief raised one issue for determination as follows-

“Whether the Court of Appeal, considering the circumstances of the appeal is justified in its award of special damages to the respondents.” I will determine this appeal on the basis of the issues raised for determination in the appellant’s brief.

Let me start with issue no 1.

I have carefully read and considered the arguments of both sides in their respective briefs on this issue. I will now proceed to determine the merits of those arguments.

The appellants have raised this issue for the first time at this stage of the proceedings. This is in keeping with the settled law that a challenge to the jurisdiction of the trial Court to entertain and or try a case can be raised at any stage of the proceedings even for the first time in an appeal to the Court of appeal or to this Court.

Both sides in their arguments disagree on whether the respondent’s claim for special and general damages as compensation for the 16.19 hectares of their ancestral land compulsorily acquired and occupied by the appellants and the four ancestral buildings/shrines, artifacts and other objects, crops and graves destroyed by the appellants is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Federal High Court.

Learned counsel for the appellants relying on Section 230 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1979 as amended by Constitution (Suspension and Modification) Decree No. 107 of 1993 and the judicial decision of Adetayo v Ademola SC.229/2004, argued that since the suit was in respect of land, it was not within the subject matter jurisdiction of the trial Federal High Court.

Learned counsel for the respondents, relying on KANADA V GOVERNOR OF KADUNA STATE (1986) 4 NWLR (PT. 35) 364, argued that any Act of the National Assembly that purports to oust the jurisdiction of a High Court to inquire into the compensation to be paid for land was unconstitutional and void, that by Section 230 of the 1979 Constitution, the suit was rightly brought to the Federal High Court as it seeks redress against the agencies of the Federal Government and claims for damages as compensation for the compulsorily acquired land based on the Land Use Act.

Let me now determine the merits of these arguments of both sides.