…fixes Jan. 31, Feb. 5, 7, 12, 19, Mar. 5 for accelerated hearing of substantive suit
By Chuks Eke
Justice Sylvester Odili of High Court No. 4, Onitsha Judicial Division in Anambra state has granted a motion for interlocutory injunction restraining Ekwerekwu family of Okposieke kindred, Ogbolieke village, Onitsha from further encroaching into and demolishing structures within the premises of Onitsha Sports Club.
Trustees and executive members of Onitsha Sports Club had filed the motion for interlocutory injunction seeking to stop the Ekwerekwu family from further encroaching into the club’s premises and demolishing existing structures thereto.
While the motion was still pending, the applicants also filed another motion asking the court to mandate the respondents to restore all the structures and properties they damaged on two or three occasions they invaded the club premises with caterpillars and carried out the demolition exercises in the name of reclaiming the land where the club is located.
Ekwerekwu family claimed that the vast area of the land in question belonged to the family but was leased to the colonial masters by their forefathers for 99 years, adding that the lease period had long expired and as such they are now out to reclaim their landed property as its original owners, which claim the plaintiffs deny vehemently, contending that neither Ekwerekwu family nor their forefathers leased any land to the Sports Club as the property did not belong to them.
But in his ruling yesterday, Justice Odili while granting the motion for interlocutory injunction restraining Ekwerekwu family from further encroaching into the club’s premises and demolishing existing structures thereto, pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit, however declined to grant the mandatory motion which he said would be embedded in the substantive suit.
The court therefore gave an accelerated hearing to the substantive suit which he fixed for January 31, February 5, 7, 12, 19 and March 5, this year for hearing.
The applicants who are the Incorporated Trustees of Onitsha Sports Club, Chief Daniel Okafor, President of the Club, Chief Tobechi Ejezie, past President of the Club and Chief Pius Nweke, a member of the Trustees for themselves and on behalf of the Incorporated Trustees of the Club had dragged the Ekwerekwu family to the court seeking to stop them from further encroaching into and demolition of structures within the club’s premises.
In the motion No. 0/285M/2024, the applicants, through their legal counsel, Kpajie Nnamdi Ibegbu SAN with A. C. Anaenugwu SAN and Chris Ajugwe Esq. are claiming that the value of damages so far done to the club’s structures which they estimated at about N3 billion on two or three occasions when they invaded the premises with caterpillars in 2024, is estimated at N1.05 billion.
In the motion, the applicants are specifically asking that the defendants, Harold Ekwerekwu, Valentine Ekwerekwu, Nonso Ekwerekwu, Obi Ekwerekwu, Igweze Ekwerekwu and Benjamin Ekwerekwu for themselves and on behalf of members of Ekwerekwu family of Okposieke kindred, Ogbolieke village, Onitsha be restrained from further wrecking more harvocs on the premises of the sports club.
They therefore prayed the court to grant the interlocutory injunction restraining the defendants jointly and severally, their agents, servants, privies and workmen from interfering with the applicants’ possession and use of the parcel of land in dispute or continuing to destroy any of their structures on the land in dispute situate and being at Egerton Road, GRA, Onitsha, pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.
The plaintiffs insisted that the land in question is more particularly described and delineated in the survey plan attached to the building certificate of occupancy granted them by the Governor of Anambra State dated October 20, 1997 and registered as No. 34 at Page 34 in Volume 134 of the Lands Registry in Awka, Anambra state.
In an affidavit in support of the motion for interlocutory injunction sworn to by the second plaintiff, Chief Dan Okafor, President of the sports club, the plaintiffs lamented that the defendants vowed to continue to destroy the remaining structures on the club’s land in dispute valued at N3 billion, as well as evict the plaintiffs from the land ‘Viet armis’, if the application is not granted.
The plaintiffs who described Onitsha Sports Club as an iconic sports and relaxation centre where Senior citizens from Anambra state and its environs gather to ward off anxiety, participate in sporting activities and relax, added that they would enter into an undertaking to pay any damages as prescribed by the court in the event of this application turning out to be frivolous.
