A Federal High Court in Abuja has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Pan African Development Corporate Company Ltd. against the Federal Government, rejecting the company’s demand for N2 trillion in damages over alleged copyright infringement.
In a ruling, Justice Inyang Ekwo dismissed the suit on the grounds that it was statute barred.
He held that the suit was instituted after the period allowed by the Public Officers Protection Act (POPA) of 2004 had lapsed.
Ekwo said: “The yardsticks to determine whether an action is statute barred are the date when the cause of action accrued, the date of commencement of the suit as indicated in the writ of summons, and the period of time prescribed to bring an action to be ascertained from the statute in question.”
The judge said he found that the cause of action in the case accrued on June 22, 2021, when the plaintiffs claimed that they found out that former President Muhammadu Buhari had inaugurated a steering committee on poverty reduction by establishing Private Equity Fund.
He said: “However, the plaintiffs waited till April 19, 2023, before commencing this action. This means that this action was not commenced within three months stipulated by law.
“As the saying goes, equity protects and aids the vigilant and does not aid the indolent or layabout.”
Ekwo emphasized that limitation laws revoke the right to judicial relief, rendering a plaintiff’s cause of action unenforceable once the statutory timeframe has expired.
He further stressed that legal actions must be initiated within the prescribed period stipulated by law, or the right to pursue such action will be irrevocably lost.
He said:“This is the order of this court.”
Although the judgment was delivered on Monday, its certified true copy (CTC) was made available to journalists on Thursday.
The plaintiffs: Pan African Development Corporate Company Ltd. and Odilim Enwebgara, had, through their lawyer, C.P. Aninwoya filed the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/529/2023 before ex-President Buhari left office.
The plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against eight defendants, including the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the National Steering Committee of the National Poverty Reduction With Growth Strategy, and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) as the 1st to 4th defendants.
Additionally, the Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment, the Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and CBN itself were joined as the 5th to 8th defendants.
In the writ of summons filed on April 19, 2023, they sought 12 reliefs, including a declaration that the acts of the minister of industry and the ministry in proposing, sharing, or presenting to the ex-President and the Nigerian “claimants’ copyrighted Information/proposal titled “PROPOSAL TO THE MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY, TRADE, AND INVESTMENT ON “THE EQUITY INVESTMENT BANK OF NIG” and/or adaptation of same by the 5th and 6th defendants before presentation to the 1st and 2nd defendants without the consent or authority of the claimants, constitute Infringement of the claimants’ copyright guaranteed under the Copyright Act.”
The claimants sought a perpetual injunction to stop the defendants from infringing on their copyright related to the “Proposal to the Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment on ‘The Equity Investment Bank of Nigeria'”.
Additionally, they requested an order for the defendants to surrender all copies of materials and publications related to the Nigeria Investment and Growth Fund that violated their copyrighted proposal.
The plaintiffs further sought an order compelling the CBN and governor to process and grant the claimants’ application for license to establish Equity Investment Bank of Nigeria upon fulfilment of necessary conditions as required by law.
The claimants sought a whopping sum of N1 trillion in compensation for the alleged compulsory acquisition of their intellectual property in relation to a proposal submitted to the Minister, as well as an additional one trillion naira in general damages.
However, CBN and its governor, listed as the 7th and 8th defendants, countered with a preliminary objection filed on August 10, 2023, seeking to have the suit dismissed entirely.
They argued that the action was statute barred and, therefore, fundamentally incompetent under POPA, 2024.
Furthermore, they argued that the suit was a gross abuse of judicial process and that the claimants’ case does not disclose a reasonable cause of action against them.
Delivering the ruling, Justice Ekwo upheld the arguments of the CBN and its governor that the action was statute barred.
Leave a comment