By Abdulwahab Abdulah

A Federal High Court sitting  in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has struck out the preliminary objection by Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited, NAOCL, praying the court to decline jurisdiction in a suit by an indigenous oil services company, Arco Group Plc, over a disagreement on award of contract between the parties.

In his ruling, trial judge, Justice Lambo Akanbi, held that the preliminary objection by the company’s lawyer, Thompson Okpoko (SAN), was incompetent and accordingly struck same out.

However, he refused to agree with the plaintiff’s claim, through its counsel, B. E. I. Nwofor (SAN), that the preliminary objection by defendants was not properly signed by the first defendant’s lawyer as stipulated by law, claiming that the signature of the author of the notice was contained in the last page.

Defendants in the suit are Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited, NAOCL; Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC; Conoco Phillips Petroleum Nig. Ltd, and National Petroleum Investment Management Services.

The indigenous company, Arco Group Plc, is claiming that the defendants, especially NAOCL and Plangeria Company Ltd, have taken steps to mobilise its officials to site contrary to a court order restraining the defendants from doing so pending the determination of the substantive suit.

The court had restrained the defendants from awarding any contract to any company for the maintenance of gas turbines and rotating equipment “at first defendants OB/OB, Ebocha and Kwale gas plants, pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.”

However, the plaintiff alleged a breach by NAOCL for awarding contract to Plantgeria Company Ltd.

The plaintiff had argued that the objection to its suit was in “violation of the provision of Order 29 Rule 2 of the Court as the objectors did not file a memorandum of appearance before filing the objection.

It also argued that the preliminary objection “was not properly signed by the first defendant, NAOCL’s lawyer as stipulated by law.”

Ruling

Ruling, Justice Akanbi held that “the defendant/objector herein did not file any memorandum of appearance before filling their notice of preliminary objection.

“The consequence is that they took that step in violation of the provisions of Order 29 rules (1) and (2) of the Court rules.

“That is a defect which, in my respective view, is fundamental to the defendant filing their notice of preliminary objection.

Struck out

“Consequently, I am in complete agreement with the argument of learned senior counsel for the plaintiff that the preliminary was filed in flagrant disobedience to the Rules of the Court.

“The end result is to strike out the preliminary objection for being incompetent. An order is accordingly made striking out the preliminary objection for being incompetent.”

However, the court went ahead to direct parties to address it on the issue of jurisdiction as raised by the defendant earlier.

Akanbi held: “That is not the end of the matter though. It is trite that the issue of jurisdiction is a threshold one.

“Once same is raised, the court must decide whether or not it has jurisdiction to entertain the claim. No matter how well conducted the proceedings are, if the court lacks jurisdiction, the entire proceedings will be a nullity.

“In the circumstance, I hereby su motu, raise the jurisdictional competence of this court to entertain the plaintiff’s claim. Parties are accordingly advised to address me on same.”

The matter was adjourned till June 30 for hearing.