Court orders Edo attorney-general to be remanded in prison custody

Posted by admin Edo, State News Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

The Federal High Court 1 sitting in Benin City, yesterday ordered the Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice in the state, Osagie Obayuwana, to be remanded in prison custody over non-compliance of the state government on an interlocutory injunction it gave in a suit involving the state government and a private investor, Churchgate Industries Limited relating to dispute between the parties over Bendel Breweries.

The presiding judge, Justice Adamu Hobon, yesterday in his ruling ordered that Obayuwana be remanded until the state government was able to provide an affidavit of compliance with an order the court earlier issued directing the state government to comply with an interlocutory injunction sought and got by Churchgate.
Following the order, several other lawyers in the court yesterday, tried to intervene on behalf of the attorney-general who claimed he did not receive any copy of the injunction.
However, Justice Hobon insisted that government should be held responsible for its disobedience of the order and that the attorney-general was a representative of the government in court. The judge later adjourned the substantive suit till March 20.

The court had last week issued a bench warrant for the arrest of the attorney-general of Edo State. He said the state government only filed a notice of appeal in the trial court against the injunction but the appeal was not entered properly, adding that it was a ploy to delay court process.
In issuing the bench warrant last week, Justice Hobon ordered the commissioner of police, Edo State, to ensure that the order was complied forthwith. The case was then adjourned to yesterday for hearing of the committal proceedings.
Some senior government officials were sighted in the court premises yesterday shortly after the end of proceedings, in a bid to seek any possibility of reversal of the court order.

Churchgate had instituted the suit to challenge alleged arbitrary and illegal action of Edo State government in forcibly ejecting it from the management of the Bendel Brewery on June 17, 2003.
Bendel Brewery Limited was previously owned and managed by Edo State government before it became insolvent as a result of alleged mismanagement and had to be closed down.
The management of the brewery was later ceded to Churchgate Industries through a management agreement with the Edo State government in 1992, following which Churchgate reactivated the then moribund brewery, recalled its staff and resumed production activities.

Several calls made to the mobile phone of the attorney-general were not answered, just as all efforts to get comments of the state Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mr. Louis Odion, failed as he did not pick calls made to his mobile phone.

-From Tony osAUZo, Benin, Sunwp_posts