The Federal High Court sitting in Ado Ekiti, yesterday warned the Lawyer handling the case of the Department of State Services(DSS) and a member of the State House of Assembly, Hon. Afolabi Akanni against absenteeism, saying his absence in court is making the hearing to drag more than necessary.
Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Federal High Court, Ado Ekiti , threatened to invoke section 22 sub-section 9 of the High Court Civil Procedure rule, if the lawyer, Mr Olayinka Olaoluwa fails to appear in court in the next adjourned date, slated for April 4, 2017.
DSS operatives were alleged to have invaded the State Assembly last year March 30 and arrested a lawmaker representing Efon Constituency, Hon Akanni and whisked him to Abuja, where he was incarcerated for 18 days.
Sequel to this, Akanni through his Lawyer(Creditor counsel ), Obafemi Adewale, sued the DSS and claimed damages, which the Federal High Court had granted and ordered the security agency to pay the sum of N5 million to the lawmaker as damages.
When the service refused to pay the damages and also failed to file a stay of execution of the earlier judgement, the creditor counsel rushed to the court to seek for interlocutory injunction compelling the debtor(DSS) to pay the money.
During Thursday’s proceeding, the Creditor counsel (Adewale) told the court that the two applications pending before it were filed on May 26 and May 31, 2016 respectively and that the case had not made any progress ever since .
“The case was adjourned last year June when it was mentioned because someone who was to stand for the DSS called that he could not come. On November 30, 2016, the matter was adjourned because Mr Olayinka asked for it. On January 18, 2017, Olayinka said he was filing some processes and sought for another adjournment.
“ Also on January 30, the debtor’s counsel was not in court because he sent a lawyer to tell the court that his wife was sick, same also on February 9 and also today. Section 22 of the civil procedure rule said written addresses of parties can be adopted even if the counsels are absent in court and this must be invoked,” he pleaded.
In his ruling, Justice Taiwo said: “I want to agree with you, but we should consider the fact that he sent a lawyer to tell the court that his wife is not feeling fine and as human beings, we must show compassion because we don’t want any insinuation.
“But let me warn that I shall invoke Section 22(9) of the Federal High court civil procedure rule if any of the parties to this case is not represented on the next adjourned date”.
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