The Appeal Court sitting in Lagos on Thursday adjourned the matters between the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) and the Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN) on one hand and the Association of Shipping Line Agencies (ASLA) and the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) on the other hand to 4th of February, 2016 for hearing.
When the matters came up for hearing yesterday, the respondents in the matters the NSC and the Shippers Association of Lagos State (SALS) through their lawyers, Mr. Emeka Akabogu and Mr. Osuala Emmanuel Nwagbara respectively informed the court that they were served with the appellants briefs of arguments that morning.
On hearing this, the trial judge, Justice Uzoamaka Ndukwe Anyanwu stated that the court was only going to take appeals that were due for hearing that morning thereby adjourning the matters to the said date.
Justice Anyanwu however indicated that the respondents should they file their briefs of argument and felt that the adjourned date given was too long in time, they reserved the right to bring an application to the court asking that the date for the hearing be moved forward.
Reacting to the day’s ruling, the Counsel to NSC, Mr. Emeka Akabogu explained that the long adjournment was as a result of the failure of the appellants to file their briefs within the time that the court ordered on the last adjourned date adding that they (respondents) were served yesterday morning.
Akabogu pointed out that the court was not minded to taking the application for extension of time disclosing that the appellants filed an application for an extension of time within which they (appellants) they were supposed to file the appellant briefs.
“So, the court has entered that we do all that in chambers and has adjourned to 4th of February for definite hearing of the matter”, he explained.
On whether he was satisfied with the decision of the court, he answered,” No! We are not satisfied with the date. We are going to meet with our clients and we will decide on the step which we are going to take. We believe that this matter is an urgent national matter and it deserves an utmost urgency from the court and we know that the court will be able to deal with this situation as it deserve”.
“What is most important is that we respond to the briefs which were just served on us today. Once we respond to the briefs served on us today and file it and serve them, then we will be able to decide on the next step to take”.
On whether the service of the briefs of argument on the respondents by the appellant was a deliberate act to delay the hearing by the appellants, the NSC’s Counsel replied,” I cannot say but it seemed it was deliberately served today because on the last adjourned date on the 17th of May, they are already out of time at that time and the court required them to have served us as soon as possible and we had a whole month plus to since that time and they are just serving us this morning. So it looks like it was deliberate but we cannot say for sure that it was”.
On his part, Counsel to SALS, Mr. Osuala Emmanuel Nwagbara disclosed that the respondents had earlier filed an application to dismiss the suits for want of diligent prosecution adding that apparently matched forward with the application they filed to dismiss the two suits, the appellants quickly filed their briefs of argument on Wednesday as well as an application to regularize the matter.
According to Nwagbara, “ And so, when the matters came up this morning (Yesterday) the court was not in a position to take the matters apparently because the court had earlier in the day indicated that they were only taking appeals that were ripe for hearing today (yesterday) and vacation is approaching and as a result of this, the court had to adjourn the two matters to 4th of February, 2016 for hearing”.
“It is expected that the respondents will file their own briefs of argument before the day but the court indicated that if we as respondents file our briefs of argument and feel that the date given is too long in time, we also have the right to bring an application asking that the date for hearing be moved forward which is what we will do because of the peculiar nature of this matter because our clients are suffering, the terminal operators, the shipping companies still collect fees, they still collect monies which they ought not collect and we are looking forward to thrashing these matters before this honourable court so that the court will decide one way or the other in respect to the issues in contention”.
Also speaking on the adjourned date, Counsel to the ASLA, Mr. Chidi Ilogu had this to say,” well, you see, when a court says they cannot give you an earlier date, the only condition they would is if you file an application to request and establish some grounds for which you want to have an earlier date and you heard it said in one or two cases before ours that the court is not going to be minded to give an earlier date of February. So, in the circumstance, we don’t have a choice, we have to accept it”.
