G. Cappa Limited V. Daily Times Of Nigeria Limited (2013)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report – COURT OF APPEAL

AMINA ADAMU AUGIE, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment)

The Respondent published an Editorial in its Newspaper of 17th February, 1982 captioned “Send Cappa Packing”. Offended by the publication, the Appellant instituted an action at the High Court of Lagos State, wherein it claimed –

“N1,000,000.00 damages for injurious Falsehood maliciously published by the Defendants [the Respondent] and calculated to damage the plaintiff [Appellant’s] business as Building and Civil Engineering Contractors”.

Upon being served with the relevant Court processes, the Respondent entered appearance and filed a Statement of Defence that was amended during trial. The Appellant did not call any witness, but Chief F.R.A. Williams (SAN) applied to tender the publication from the Bar. Mr. Kehinde Sofola (SAN) objected, and in overruling his objection, the learned trial Judge, Adeyinka, J., held that –

“- – A newspaper just like a gazette can be tendered from the bar. The fact that other party has no opportunity to cross-examine on the newspaper goes to weight. The objection is overruled. The Daily Times Newspaper on 17th February, 1988 is admitted in evidence as EXHIBIT P1”.

The said Exhibit P1 reads as follows-

“Within the last 16 months, 14 Nigerians have died and 29 others injured as a result of the collapse of two building at the Barnawa Federal Housing Estates, Kaduna. What is most painful about this uncalled for deaths and wanton destruction of property is the fact that the houses were built by G. Cappa, a construction company that has worked in Nigeria for many years. If experience is a criterion for excellence then one would have expected durable houses from the company, but regrettably, they capitalized on inadequate supervision by the Federal Housing Authority to do a shoddy job.

We see this as a complete unwillingness on the part of the company to contribute meaningfully to our development efforts. It will be preposterous to believe that G. Cappa is incapable of doing a decent job if it wants to. But its performance at the Barnawa Estate creates the impressions that the company is all out to exploit this nation. There is no gainsaying the fact that G. Cappa got an insignificant fraction of the amount and maximize profit though it was supposed to be aware through its building experts that the houses were defective.

This deliberate action to do second rate work after receiving huge amount from the government is one of the things that has slowed down the development of this country. That is why more often than not our government award contracts for the reconstruction of roads, houses and other projects which were completed few years earlier, thereby wasting money unnecessarily on the same programme instead of executing new ones. We believe that G. Cappa and its ilk purposely do these poor jobs with the hope that the same project will be rewarded to them in a few years’ time at higher prices because of the world-wide galloping inflation. As a country that is in a hurry to develop we cannot allow unscrupulous companies like G. Cappa to continue to exploit us.

The Kaduna State Government probably realized this hence it black-listed G. Cappa soon after the first incident of September, 23, 1980 which claimed six lives. Unfortunately, other Governments did not follow the prudent reprisal of the Kaduna State Authorities. The life of every Nigerian is precious. We cannot, therefore allow G. Cappa to continue not only to destroy lives and property, but also to hinder National progress.

We, therefore, want the Federal Government to blacklist the company immediately. There is no need for probes that will not benefit this country. The collapse of the two building within this short period is enough evidence of either incompetence or exploitation”.

After tendering Exhibit P1, Chief F.R.A. Williams (SAN) said – “I close my case”.

The Respondent called three witnesses and tendered the following Exhibits –

– Exhibit D1 – A story captioned “Eight killed as Building collapses” at page 32 of the New Nigerian Newspaper of Monday February 15 1982;