Counsel to the Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN), Mr. Femi Atoyebi SAN has advised his client STOAN as well as the general public to ignore the illegal directives or any other directive of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) premised on the judgment of the Federal High Court Lagos as delivered by Justice Ibrahim Buba last year.
In a letter titled,” Re: Nigerian Shippers’ Council Notice To All Port Users (Notice NO: NSC/LN-PU/2015/001) Atoyebi reminded his clients and the general public that they were not bound to follow the directives as issued by the NSC until his client’s pending application and/or appeal had been determined one or the other.
According to him,” our attention has been drawn to the misleading publication by the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) of Thursday 12, 2015 contained on page 68 of the Guardian Newspapers wherein NSC itemized about nine (9) issues purportedly decided in their favour in the judgment of the Federal High Court delivered by Coram I. N. Buba J. on 17/12/2014”.
“Firstly and for the avoidance of doubt, NSC did not file any counter-claim in the matter relating to our clients, STOAN in suit NO. FHC/L/CS/1704/2014 and so the court could not have upheld same as claimed in item 4 of the said publication”.
“Secondly, the publication deliberately concealed the fact that the said judgment is subject of a pending appeal and that our clients also filed an application for a stay of execution of the judgment/injunction pending the determination of the appeal”.
“We have also had course to write to the NSC when it was apparent that they were making frantic efforts to ride rough shod of the judicial process and threatening our clients to comply with their directives as from 22/12/14. Clearly, this is not only illegal but unacceptable and a cloaked attempt to foist upon the Court of Appeal a situation of complete helplessness so that if our clients’ appeal succeeds their lordships’ decision would have been rendered nugatory”.
The legal luminary emphasized that the law in Nigeria was that where as there was an appeal against a court decision and a motion for a stay of execution/injunction was filed, none of the parties must do anything to frustrate the hearing of the appeal until the application had been heard and determined, one way or the other premising his argument on Vaswani Trading V Savalakh &Co (1972)b and Kigo V Holman Bros (1980).
“It is also trite that both the court from which an appeal lies and the court to which the appeal lies have a duty to preserve the ‘res’ so that the appeal, if successful, is not rendered nugatory. We consider that NSC lawyers should have advised them appropriately of the correct position of the law and if they did, it would appear that NSC are refusing to follow the advise. We hastened to add that the NSC publication and any further step that may be taken by them in a bid to frustrate the pending appeal and foist on a Court of Appeal a situation of complete helplessness would be highly contemptuous of the court and we would not hesitate to apply the full weight of the law on such persons as nay have authorized the publication. We would also like to draw NSC’s attention to the decision of the Court of Appeal in the case of RATISCO (NIG) LTD. V S.G.S. (1990) 6 NWLR (PT. 158) PG. 610, PARA. 5 wherein the Court held as follows;
“Where a party who has suffered a defeat following a trial in any cause or matter is appealing and he asks the court for a stay, he will not be held in contempt merely because he has not obeyed the order which he is appealing against or which he wants stayed or suspended pending the appeal. What the courts frown against is any attempt by a successful party to pre-empt an appeal itself by accelerating or rushing the process of execution of the judgment so as to frustrate the exercise by the court of its jurisdiction to hear the application or the appeal”.
“We are by this letter advising our clients andb the general public to ignore the illegal directives or any directive of the NSC on the said judgment as they are not bound to follow them until our clients’ pending application and/or appeal has been determined, one way or the other”, Atoyebi said.
