Court adjourns suit seeking to block NDDC account to January 31

A suit by Prince Emmanuel Okotie-Eboh seeking to restrain the newly-constituted Governing Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has been adjourned to January 31, 2023, for argument.

The presiding judge of the Warri Federal High Court, Hon. Justice Okon Abang, on the 26th of January, 2023, heard parties to the suit including Counsel to the Managing Director of the NDDC, who brought an application for joinder and that of the plaintiffs, Jolone Ikomi, Esq., ordered all the defendants to file their processes before the next adjourned date because of the urgent and sensitive nature of the issues involved for hearing.

The Managing Director of the newly-constituted Board of the NDDC had sought to join the suit, but the Counsel to the plaintiffs was opposed to the joinder, contending that inasmuch as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, principal of the MD was already a party to the suit, the MD, being an agent, cannot be a necessary party.

Counsel to the MD, Rex Ogbuku, Esq., however, contended that since the order sought to be made would affect the interest of the party sought to be joined, it is constitutionally mandated that the MD be joined.

The court then consolidated the applications for joinder, and the request for injunction and adjourned both applications upon the consent of Counsel to January 31, 2023, for arguments.

It will be recalled that the extant suit is one seeking an injunction to restrain the newly-inaugurated NDDC Board from accessing funds or implementing the budget of the agency for being unjust, unfair and inequitable to the people of Delta State in general and Itsekiri in particular.

The plaintiffs are indigenes and members of the oil and gas-producing communities of Itsekiri ethnic extraction in Warri South, Warri South-West and Warri North local government areas of Delta State led by Prince Emmanuel Okotie-Eboh and four others.

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