Court strikes out suit challenging Obaro of Kabba’s appointment

A Kogi state high court sitting in Lokoja, on Monday struck out a suit challenging the appointment and installation of Solomon Owoniyi, as the Obaro of Kabba in Kabba local government area of Kogi state.

The suit filed by the Ilajo clan of Kabba wanted the court to stop parading himself as the new monarch of the town.

The state governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, had approved the appointment of Owoniyi as the new Obaro with a letter of appointment presented to him.

The Ilajo clan, however, approached the court to challenge the action, claiming that Owoniyi was not from Kabba town.

The suit has defendants the Obaro-elect and the Kogi state government.

However, when the suit resumed for hearing on Monday, counsel to the Ilajo clan, Peter Abah, sought to withdraw it due to “error”.

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Abah in an oral application told the court that he wanted to withdraw the suit because he suddenly discovered some errors in the case he filed.

But counsel to the defendant, Kabiru Fadile and the state government representative did not oppose the oral motion but prayed the court to grant them N1 million and N200,000 respectively for time wasting on the part of the claimant.

Fadile said he knew the claimant would discontinue the suit because he knew the truth that the Obaro stool belonged to every clan in the community as against the claim of Ilajo as the sole owner of the stool.

He said the petition was defective because the claim of the plaintiff was not genuine.

The presiding judge, Justice Moses Gwatana, who ruled in favour of the oral application by the claimant struck out the case and awarded tN10,000 and N5,000 to the defendants respectively.