In his address, Barrister Umar Faruq Muhammed, the Lawyer representing Kelebe-Omu Land Owners Association, disclosed that the Nigerian Army has not filed any appeal to challenge the high court judgement on disputed land in Kelebe-Omu.
Umar Faruq revealed this at the landowners meeting organized on Thursday to specifically address issues bothering on the contesting land.
“Nigeria Army has failed to explored 90 days period to appeal to the Judgement of the court, as there is no further record up till now to shown that any appeal was filed”.
He said further ”After the Court gave the verdict that the land belonged to the Kelebe-Omu Family, on January 10,2023, there have been no record of an appeal filed by the Army”.
“In fact, we are not aware of anything throughout the period. And afterwards we did write a letter to them threatening to take steps of filing a contempt proceeding against the Federal Government and the Nigeria Army for beating up people that are on the land”.
“Based on the judgment of the court, that was sometime around last year April, up till November, there was nothing coming from them and there was no reply to our letters”.
” And we took further steps by written a reminder that they should comply with the judgment of the court. But nothing was forthcoming until when my people decided to go to the public to know what they are facing, to know what the Nigerian Army is doing illegally on the land that has been taken away from them by the judgment of the court, it was sometime last week that their lawyer, Mr George Akinseye reached out to us”.
“He wrote a letter to us attaching a motion for extension of time because upon the judgment of the Court, they have three months within which to appeal”.
“The three months elapsed, the motion served on our office was dated November last year. They didn’t serve us any application”.
“And even that motion is only seeking the order of the court to extend, to enlarge the time with which they were appealed. As we speak today, there is no appeal yet”.
“They are only praying the Court to give them the time to enlarge it for them to file an appeal”. He disclosed.
“It is there in the judgment, the Nigeria Army are stopped, denied, restrained from coming on the land”.
“So it is a flagrant disobedience to the judgment of the Court for Army to come to the land”.
“If the court of appeal felt that the Government and the affidavit, the reason they gave is cogent enough for the courts to enlarge the time for them, then the court will do”.
“But in this instance, the judgment of the court has been executed, then what are we saying”,
“Well, it stands because any application that is filed before the court, until the court decides otherwise on the application, it is presumed to be a valid application before the court”.
“So it is left for the court to decide whether the application is worth consideration or not. If it’s worth it, it goes and grant application. If it’s not, the court trades out on it” he added.
In the same vain, the Alagba of Osogboland, Chief Olawale Ahmed Adeoye also stated his position “the Court should be the last hope of common man and since the Court has given his verdict, I think it has to be respected”.
When contacted, the Oluponno of Osogboland
Chief Ahmadu Akanbi said “the Court Judgement should be respected, we have served the notice to the Chief of Army staff, the Commander in Ede and that we are back to our lands. You can see that Surveyors have started measuring the land”.
