Jos High Court to Rule on LMC Appeal Today

Mr. Justice I. I Kunda of the Plateau State High Court, Jos on Monday adjourned to today the suit for the reinstatement of Giwa FC into the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) 2015/16 season.

The judge will today rule on the issue of whether he can continue to hear the case, after LMC had appealed against his order of interim injunction.

At the resumed sitting in a case filed by one Mustapha Abubakar seeking to reinstate Giwa FC into the NPFL and also reschedule all the games the club was excluded from playing following its expulsion in May.

The only issue argued by counsels on both sides was whether the Judge can continue to hear the matter in view of the appeal filed by LMC against the earlier interim order of the Judge made on 12th August, 2016.

When the case came up, the LMC’s Counsel, Olumide Olujinmi, informed the court that the league body had filed an appeal against the interim order and applied to the court to adjourn the matter sine die pending the outcome of the hearing of the appeal by the Court of Appeal in accordance with decided cases and legal authorities.

He referred the court to the affidavit of pending appeal filed by LMC to this effect.
But the application was opposed by the counsel for Abubakar, H.S. Adzard, who though admitted to having been served with the affidavit of pending appeal.

Adzard had argued that there is no pending appeal since the records of proceeding has not been transmitted to the Court of Appeal within 60 days as required by rules.
He also contended that the Affidavit of Pending Appeal was incompetent and urged the court to go on with the case.

H.O. Maduabuchi, the attorney whose authority to appear in the matter for Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) on the claim of having been appointed by one Yahaya Adama associated with a renegade group led by Mr Chris Giwa is yet to be resolved, adopted the submissions of Adzard, and urged the court to continue the hearing of the case.

In his reply, Olujinmi cited further cases and authorities and submitted that in view of the facts of the case and these authorities the High Court was now barred from hearing the case.

He alerted the court to the ploy of the opposing Counsel who, he stated, was only trying to get the judge to decide or rule on issues already properly submitted to the Court of Appeal for adjudication. He urged the court to resist this attempt by the opposing Counsel.

The judge then requested Olujinmi to furnish the court with copies of the legal authorities he had cited which the LMC counsel undertook to do.