A Federal High Court in Abuja has set June 27 as the date for a decision in a claim filed by the family of late military dictator Gen. Sani Abacha seeking the revocation of his property in Abuja’s Maitama sector.
Justice Peter Lifu set the date on Wednesday after the Abacha family’s lawyer, Reuben Atabo, and the defendants, led by James Onoja, adopted their procedures and argued their cases for and against the complaint.
Maryam Abacha, Abacha’s wife, and Mohammed, her eldest surviving son, filed the lawsuit.
The defendants in the complaint are the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA), President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and Salamed Ventures Limited, as first to fourth.
The applicants prayed the court to nullify and set aside the purported revocation of the certificate of occupancy (C of O) of the property of the late Abacha located in the Maitama district.
The C of O marked FCT/ABUKN 2478 covering plot 3119, issued on June 25, 1993, was said by the family to have been illegally and unlawfully revoked by the defendants.
In their statement of claims, the Abacha family said that the FCT, under Nasir El-Rufai, had instructed them to submit the C of O in their possession for re-certification.
They claimed that the second plaintiff, Mohammed, promptly complied with the directive.
While waiting for a new C of O to be issued to them, plaintiffs asserted that Mohammed received a letter on February 3, 2006, notifying them that the C of O had been revoked without any reason adduced in the letter.
Besides failing to give any reason for the revocation, the Abacha family alleged that adequate compensation was not paid as required by law.
The family therefore asked the court to declare as unconstitutional, unlawful, illegal, null and void and of no effect, the purported revocation of the property.
They sought order of the court setting aside the purported revocation and holding that their C of O is valid and subsisting having been revoked without payment of adequate compensation.
According to them, the C of O issued to Abacha was maliciously revoked without legal basis or justification.
The plaintiffs asked for an order of injunction prohibiting the defendants from taking any further step on the disputed revocation.
Similarly, they prayed Justice Lifu to award N500 million as damages to be paid to them by the four defendants.
However, the defendants in their separate counter affidavits and preliminary objections, asked for outright dismissal of the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/463/2016.
The defendants claimed that the suit at the time it was instituted had become statute-barred, having not been filed within the time allowed by law, among other arguments.
Although, some of the defendants were not in court at Wednesday’s proceedings, Justice Lifu invoked the rule of the court in adopting their processes already filed.
