File photo: Herdsmen along with their cows wait for buyers at Kara Cattle Market in Lagos, Nigeria, on April 10, 2019. – Kara cattle market in Agege, Lagos is one of the largest of West Africa receiving thousands of cows weekly due to the massive consumption of meat …. (Photo / AFP)
By Ikechukwu Nnochiri
ABUJA—The Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore Social-Cultural Association, on Monday, dragged Benue State government before the Court of Appeal sitting Abuja, seeking to upturn the Anti-Open Grazing Law that is currently in operation in the state.
File: Cows
The group, through their lawyer, Aliyu Ahmed, is praying the appellate court to set-aside a judgement the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court delivered on July 4, which declined its application for the Anti-Open Grazing Law that was passed by the Benue State House of Assembly to be abolished.
Other appellants that joined Miyatti Allah to challenge the dismissal of the application by the high court are Alhaji Abdullahi Bodojo and Engr Saleh Alhassan.
They are urging the court to order the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court to re-assign the case to another judge aside Justice Okon Abang, for it to be re-heard.
It will be recalled that Justice Abang had in a judgement on July 4, threw away the suit on the premise that the originating summons the group brought before the court was incompetent.
The Judge went ahead and awarded N100,000 cost in favour of each of the 14 defendants in the case, which he said must first be paid by the plaintiffs before they could take any further steps.
Meantime, in their notice of appeal dated July 30, the appellants raised 10 grounds they urged the appellate court to consider and order that their case be re-listed for hearing.
The appellants argued that the lower court was in error when it held that they had no valid originating summons even when they filed an amended process.
They argued: “The appellants filed an irregular and voidable amended originating summons on the 31th May, 2019 without payment of the default tees.
“Yet the lower court held that the originating summons is invalid and a nullity.
“It is trite law that a mistake of counsel cannot be visited on the litigant especial when it is pardonable and the irregular amended process filed on the 31st May, 2019 is before the court and the lower court have the duty to ensure that the suit of the appellants is heard on the merit.
“The lower court ought not to shut out a litigant by dismissing his claim when the process of court is amended in error without seeking extension of time to amend same.
“More so all the respondents have filed their various counter affidavits against the originating summons.
“The failure to pay the default fees or filing fees for the amended originating summons filed on 31st May. 2019 only made it at worst a voidable and not void or a nullity.
“The lower court can order the payment of the default fees pursuant to the relevant Rules of the lower court.
“The under assessment or failure of payment of default filing fees cannot be a basis of punishing the litigant with an order of dismissal of the suit.
“The non compliance with order 17 Rule 6 of the lower court Civil Procedure Rules have nothing to do with the jurisdiction of the lower court.
“The low court determined the substantive suit at the interlocutory stage of the suit by holding that the 4th defendant IawfuIIy enacted the Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law 2017 and further held that the law was duly assented to by the Governor of the Benue State in a ruling tagged as judgment.”
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