An Oyo state High Court sitting in Ring-Road, Ibadan on Tuesday gave an order of stay of action, restraining the state’s ministries of Justice, Environment and Habitat, including Works and Transport from demolishing a property belonging to a businessman, Mr. Dapo Davies.
Davies, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Pelly Foam Limited, had dragged the Oyo State Government before the state High Court 3, presided over by Justice E. Esan, since 2013 over the plan to demolish the building containing 25 locked up shops located along Agodi-Gate area of Ibadan in a suit with number 1/173/13.
But officials of the state’s Ministry of Works and Transport recently moved equipment to pull down the property in order to pave the way in the on-going dualization of the Gate- Iwo Road, Ibadan, despite the fact that the businessman had sought to join the ministry in the case pending before the court.
Consequently, Davies, through his counsel, Babatunde Akinola from the Michael Folorunso Lana Chambers, filed contempt charge against the state’s Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Commissioner for Environment and Habitat and Commissioner for Works and transport.
However, at the resumed hearing on the case Monday, counsel to the defendants, Olusola Orobode, from the state’s Ministry of Justice, argued that the Commissioner for Works and Transport could not be committed into prison over the contempt charge in the suit in which his ministry had not been joined.
His words: “as far as the Ministry of Works is concerned, the ministry had not been served, there is no proof of service. We all know that the ministry deserves to be heard. The claimant cannot shave the head of the ministry in its absence.”
In his response, counsel to the claimant/applicant, Akinola, insisted that the Commissioners should come before the court to explain the reason why they want to go behind the door to demolish the said property, knowing fully that the case was pending before the court.
He maintained further that the Ministry of Works and Transport had been properly served, and that the ministry even responded by deposing to a counter-affidavit.
The court, thereafter, gave an order of stay of action restraining all the parties involved in the matter from tampering with the said property, pending the court’s decision.
Packaged by Gbenga Abegunrin
