Jos Main Market Authority Vs Jaiz Bank, Court Adjourns To 13th September For Ruling

Yakubu Busari

Plateau State High Court sitting on vacation on Monday has adjourned to the 13th Day of September 2022 for ruling on two applications including a preliminary objection raised by the Attorney General of Plateau State, Chrystantus Ahmadu against the Niri . I . Darong the plaintiff /Claimant’s counsel.

Honorable Member representing Jos South /Jos East Federal Constituency has filed a suit challenging Governor Simon Bako Lalong , Plateau State Government, and the Attorney General & Commissioner for Justice Plateau State Chrystantus Ahmadu over the handing over of the main market for rebuilding to Jaiz Bank construction.

The allegations border on the term of agreements reached with the state government to sign MoU without due consultation with the people of the state before embarking on the 40 years,60 percent to Jaiz while 40 percent to the government that’s out of PPP, as disclosed by Darong .

The Attorney General of Plateau State Chrystantus Ahmadu earlier argued before Honorable Justice S. P. Gang seeking adjournment and that the suit should be returned back to the Chief Judge of the state for fresh allocation of the matter.

Barr. N. I . Darong told journalists that the Attorney General wants the court to adjourn the matter feeling that one Philemon Dafi has filled by another separate application regarding the same matter urging the judge that the matter be sent back to the CJ so that the case matter should be consolidated.

He disclosed that we vehemently opposed his line of argument that, that application, we are not a party to that matter and all the relief they’re seeking can’t be the same one as the one we earlier filed.

According to him, the attorney general has to come by way of motion if he wanted to consolidate with the court which the court agreed with our current presentation by taking judicial notice of the suit.

Darong explained further that they earlier sought the court that the matter is met for the vacation, which the court saw reasons to allow our applications to scale through, adding, we wrote to the attorney general that we want to proceed with the matter during the vacation and he agreed to it.

However, he stressed that the attorney general made baseless allegations that they might not get Justice from the judge who abandoned his application, but later apologized before the court to allow him to proceed and that was granted.

We argue that before you make any allegations in court that be you want, you must come in the form of an affidavit and address the court on it because if our applications can’t scale through the Court might refer it to a member of benchers to scrutinize it.

Darong stated, that the attorney general and Commissioner for Justice later apologize to the court for what he did and that he is ready to proceed with the hearing at the point where he stopped his matter and the court in his wisdom granted him the audience.

He noted that the court heard his motion of preliminary Objection raised seeking to trash out the point of law and he was seeking to argue his P.O and court also heard his application seeking for an extension of time to file and regularise his argument calling on the court to strike out our suit.

Darong maintained that the court also entertains our two applications of the suit seeking an order of the court to strike out their preliminary Objection to stop the suit filed by the claimant’s counsel.

Darong argument was they were not aware of suit No, PLD/429/2022 that the fact between the two applications is quite different from each other.