Lagos Traders Set To Attach Union Bank’s Property
In a bid to satisfy a judgment sum of N16,376,000, 26 traders at Ajeniya Balogun Market, Lagos, have issued a write of attachment and sale of goods of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc and its transport manager, M. T. Bello.
The notice of attachment (Form 41) was filed before the court to recover the said sum due to the failure of the bank to pay the judgement sum as ordered by the court.
What led to the issue of the notice of attachment started 11 years ago, when five traders at Ajeniya Balogun Market, Adeola Dawodu, Emmanuel Anike, Francis Nzobiwu, Onyeka D. Sylvanus and Hanna Njoguani, for themselves and 26 others, dragged Union Bank of Nigeria Plc and its transport manger, M. T. Bello, before the court for illegally destroying their stalls and goods looted.
In an amended statement of claim filed before the court by a Lagos lawyer, Femi Olufokunbi on behalf of the traders, it was alleged that the plaintiffs obtained ware permits from and paid N3,000 each to the Lagos Island Local Government for the land allocated to them to market their wares and had regularly paid monthly rent.
They contended that they had been selling peacefully for over 18 years outside the view and premises of Union Bank, occupying a small piece of land known as Ajenifa Market, Balogun Street, Lagos.
However, they failed to the corrupt demands of Mr. M. T. Bello who insisted that they must be paying their monthly rent to Union Bank instead of the local government.
When they refused, he caused a poster to be pasted on their stalls purporting it to be issued by the chairman of the local government, ordering them to remove their market sheds or face prosecution.
However, on enquiry, the poster was found out not issued by the Lagos Island Local Government and rather than prosecute as threatened in the poster, M. T. Bello was alleged to have disrupted the traders and barricaded them from entering their allocated premises.
In a bid to enforce the eviction, the defendant allegedly employed ‘area boys’ to pull down their sheds and goods worth about N13 million were looted while the sheds cost them N8,000 per shed totaling N208,000, to repair.
The case that spanned 11 years had been handled by four different judges and during the trial, the plaintiffs called two witnesses to buttress their case.
The defendants, in their defence, claimed that the land belongs to them and not the Lagos Island Local Government and consequently, filed counter-claims against the traders.
In a judgment delivered by Justice Yetunde Idowu, the defendants failed to establish their title to the area of land in dispute and cannot in such circumstance maintain an action for damages for tresspass. As such, the claimants had to be compensated by way of general damages for being deprived of the use of their stalls by the defendants.
Consequently, the defendants and their agents were restrained from further tresspassing and demolition of the plaintiffs’ sheds.
Comments