Prof. Theophilus Adelodun Okin & Anor V. Mrs. Agnes Iyeba Okin (2019)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

PAUL ADAMU GALUMJE, J.S.C.

The Respondent herein, who was plaintiff at the Federal High Court, Ilorin Division, at paragraph 50 of her statement of claim dated 4th April, 2014 and filed on the 7th April, 2014 claimed against the Appellants jointly and severally the following reliefs: –

“(a) A declaration that the claimant is a co-owner of Kinsey Academy and Kinsey College of Education both in Ilorin and 1st Defendant lacks the vires to appropriate same for himself.

(b) A declaration that the claimant is eminently and validly entitled to 50% of the assets of Kinsey Academy and Kinsey College of Education, Ilorin.

(c) A declaration that the unilateral takeover of the schools by the 1st Defendant to the exclusion of the claimant is illegal, null and void.

(a) A mandatory order of this honourable Court, compelling the 1st defendant, his agents, servants, employees and proxies to render proper account of the financial affairs of Kinsey Academy and Kinsey College of Education to the Court from 1st January, 2011 to date.

(e) An order of this honourable Court dissolving the partnership

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and winding down the affairs of Kinsey Academy and Kinsey College of Education, Ilorin and the liquidation of the assets and liabilities of the schools, and sharing same equally between the claimant and 1st Defendant.

(f) An order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants, their agents, servants and privies from further administering the affairs of Kinsey Academy and Kinsey College of Education, Ilorin.

(g) The sum of two million naira (N2,000,000.00) only being general damages for the embarrassment, humiliation, frustration and inconvenience suffered by the claimant in the hands of the defendants.”

In their joint forty-six paragraph statement of defence filed on the 4th of June, 2014 the Appellants denied the Respondent’s claims. Issues having been joined, the case proceeded to trial. At the end of the trial, Learned Counsel for the parties addressed the Court. In a reserved and considered judgment, delivered on the 24th of February 2015 Faji J., granted to the Respondent reliefs a – e and g. The learned trial judge refused to grant relief f on the ground that the order sought therein will operate against no one, since the

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partnership by the grant of relief so (e) remain dissolved.