By Onozure Dania

ITS fast becoming a trend for some Judges and Magistrates in Lagos State to send Journalists out of their courts, during proceedings.

•A scene from a dumpsite

One of such cases occurred again, Friday, when a judge, Justice Taofiquat Oyekan-Abdullahi, ordered reporters out of the courtroom during hearing of a suit filed against the Lagos State Government and five others, by the Incorporated Trustees, Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria, otherwise known as Private Sector Participation, operators (PSP) of wastes.

It would be recalled that on March 3, 2017, Magistrate H. O. Amos, of an Igbosere Magistrate’s court had also ordered a Vanguard journalist out of his court “for not obtaining his permission before entering his court.” The magistrate was hearing an application by a surety, Mr. Gbenga Badmos, who had applied to withdraw from standing as surety for a defendant, Mr. AkindeleAfolabi, who is the former holder of a power of attorney for the Iyalode Efunroye Tinubu Estate.

In the course of proceedings, the court registrar had informed Amos that there was a journalist in court and Amos, who has a reputation for barring journalists from his court, abruptly stopped the proceedings and asked the journalist to identify herself, and thereafter sent her out.

The PSP operators had approached the court seeking to stop the Lagos State Government from relieving them of their job of managing domestic wastes in the state. They had claimed that the state government had perfected plans to take their job and give it to a foreign company, Visionscape Sanitation Solutions Limited.

Domestic wastes

Joined  with the Lagos State Government as respondents in the suit are both its Commissioner for Environment and Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice. Others are Visionscape Group, Visionscape Sanitation Solutions Limited and ABC Sanitation Solutions Limited.

At the resumed hearing of the matter on Friday, Justice Oyekan-Abdullahi, who sits at the Tafawa Balewa Square division of the Lagos State High Court, ordered reporters from Vanguard, The PUNCH, The Guardian and Thisday Newspapers out of her courtroom. The judge had asked the journalists to identify themselves among the people sitting in the gallery and walk out of her courtroom to save themselves from being “fished out and embarrassed” by the policeman orderly.

The judge made the order after the counsel to the state, Mr. S.A. Quadri, made a complaint that journalists were always in court to cover proceedings in the case. Quadri alleged that the journalists were being sponsored to cover the case by the PSP operators.

According to him, the PSP operators, after filing a suit against the government in court, were still using the press to fight the state. Quadri said he “appreciated the path that this honourable court wants the parties to go” but expressed concern that “our learned friends have employed the press.” It was while Quadri was expressing this concern that Justice Oyekan-Abdullahi turned to the people sitting in the gallery and asked,”Are there journalists here?” She advised the journalists to identify themselves and “honourably” go out before they would be fished out and embarrassed. The journalists in the courtroom stood up and quietly walked out immediately.

In an application for interlocutory injunction filed through their lawyer, Mr. Ebun-OluAdegboruwa, the PSP operators are asking the court to restrain the Lagos State Government and its agents from terminating their right to collect, dispose and manage domestic solid wastes in all areas of Lagos. They want the court to stop the state from taking over the role of managing solid wastes in the state from them and giving it to a foreign company, Visionscape Group, which is operating in partnership with two Nigerian companies – Visionscape Sanitation Solutions Limited and ABC Solutions Limited. But all the defendants have opposed the suit and urged the court to dismiss it. Earlier in the proceedings, the judge had called for calm among the lawyers when she saw that tempers were high in the course of arguments.

The Judge while standing down the matter so that lawyers could calm down, had noted that the case was a sensitive one as it bordered on the means of livelihood of people, who were at the risk of not being able to feed their families. “What we’re all trying to do is strike a balance and ensure that nobody has problem in the course of this case,” Justice Oyekan-Abdullahi said, adding that, “There’s effort on the part of the state to do justice. I don’t want you to think that it is only through legal means that we can solve this case.”

The claimants’ counsel, Mr. David Fadile, and counsel toVisionscape Group, Francis Akinlotan, had argued for the legality of filling a further counter-affidavit. Akinlotan had told the judge that he had an application seeking the leave of the court to file a further counter-affidavit to enable him respond to some new issues raised by the claimants’ counsel in his further affidavit. But Fadile objected, describing Akinlotan’s application as “completely strange.” “You cannot seek the leave of the court to do what does not exist in law,” Fadile argued. But Akinlotan insisted that his application was not strange.