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A Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court No 51, Jikwoyi, Abuja, presided over by Zubairu Mohammed, has granted Trademore International Holding Nigeria Ltd. (developers of Trademore Estate, Lugbe, Abuja), an order for maintenance of status quo.
It also granted an interim injunction restraining all Federal Government defendants and their employees, agents, officials, privies and all those purporting to be acting for them or deriving title from them and any other persons howsoever and whomsoever called, from trespassing or further trespassing on, demolishing or further demolishing Trademore Estate, known as Plot 1981, Sabon Lugbe, Abuja.
Mike Ozekhome had, on behalf of Trademore Estate, filed a suit against some Federal Government functionaries and agencies who had threatened to further demolish Trademore Estate over issues concerning flooding of the estate.
In the said writ of summons, Trademore had, among other reliefs, asked the court to restrain the Minister of FCT, the Federal Capital Development Authority, the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council and the Abuja Municipal Area Council from demolishing the estate with the buildings and appurtenances thereon or evicting the occupants or from trespassing on in any manner howsoever, into the Trademore Estate or from carrying out any further or fresh demolition exercise of any structures or buildings in the said estate or in anyway interfering with the plaintiff’s exclusive right of ownership and possession of the said property.
Trademore Holding, in the main suit, complained to the court about earlier illegal, wanton and unconscionable demolition of buildings belonging to innocent occupants in the estate by agents of the defendants when it was manifestly clear that the three flooding ever experienced in the estate since it was built in 2007 were all caused not by the plaintiff or occupants of the estate but by acts of gross negligence occasioned by the defendants or through outright inaction by agents of the Federal Government by refusing to implement any of the anti-flooding measures jointly devised and agreed upon at various meetings and through several correspondences by representatives of the Federal government and Trademore Holding International Ltd. (owners of the Trademore Estate).
The plaintiff argued, among others, that if the defendants through the ecological fund had not built a narrow canal instead of a huge bridge to allow free passage of water coming from a now broken down and disused dam that runs through several adjoining settlements, coupled with several unstrained excavatory acts of other developers in the area, there would have been no incidence of flooding in the estate.
Trademore Holding, therefore, sought from the court an order for maintenance of status quo and also an ex parte order of interim injunction restraining all the defendants or their agents, servants, employees or privies howsoever and whomsoever, from any act for further trespass or demolition of the estate or any part thereof, pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice for interlocutory injunction which was also filed alongside the writ of summons, statement of claim and the motion for interim injunction.
In the ex parte application, Mohammed granted all the claimant’s injunctive reliefs against the Federal Government functionaries and agents. He also specifically granted the second prayer asked for, to wit, that “all parties maintain status quo while the Motion on Notice and Writ of Summons be served on the defendants forthwith.”
The judge thereafter adjourned the motion on notice for hearing to September 22.
