Mrs Margaret Ifop V. Central Bank Of Nigeria (1974)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

ELIAS, C.J.N.

This appeal against the judgment of the Ikeja High Court delivered on September 27, 1971 raises an important question of pleading. Therein, Dosunmu J. nonsuited the plaintiff who claimed to have made a series of payments totaling 16,350 Pounds in 1968 to the defendant in old Nigerian currency notes for exchange into new Nigerian currency notes and which the defendant had failed to exchange for the plaintiff.

The matter arose in the following manner. The plaintiff’s writ of summons reads as follows:

“The Plaintiff’s claim against the Defendant is for the sum of 16,350 Pounds being money paid in 1968 by the Plaintiff to the Defendant in old Nigerian Currency notes to be exchanged by the defendants into new Nigerian Currency notes and which the defendant has failed to exchange for the Plaintiff. In the alternative the plaintiff claims the said sum as money had and received by the defendant to the use of the plaintiff.”

In her Statement of Claim, the plaintiff averred, so far as relevant, as follows:

1. The Plaintiff is a Nigerian Citizen ordinarily resident in Ogoja Province of the South Eastern State of Nigeria and the defendants are a bank established and incorporated by and under the Central Bank of Nigeria Act.
2. The defendants were duly charged inter alia with the following duties in 1968:

(a) To issue Currency notes in the Ogoja Province of the South Eastern State of Nigeria; and

(b) To exchange old Nigerian Currency notes presented at places designated by the Governor of the defendant Bank for new Nigerian currency notes circulating at the present time in all parts of the country.

3. The plaintiff made eleven payments to the proper officers or representatives of the defendant Bank at the appropriate place and within the time prescribed of sums of money totaling 16,355 Pounds in old Nigerian currency notes for the purpose of receiving the equivalent amount in new Nigerian currency notes.
4. Soon after the payments pleaded in paragraph 3 hereof the defendant Bank withheld payment to the Plaintiff of the equivalent amount in new Nigerian currency pending police investigation into a report that one Mr. Esuabana had demanded and was given 1,000 Pounds as bribe by the Plaintiff.
5. At the end of their investigation the Police could not find enough evidence to prosecute Mr. Esuabana for receiving bribe.
6. Notwithstanding the conclusion of Police investigation the defendants refused to pay the sum of 16,355 Pounds to the plaintiff.
7. The defendants have purported to confiscate the said sum.

In its Statement of Defence, the defendant, so far as relevant, averred as follows:

3. The plaintiff had stated to the defendant’s servants and agents, that she gave 1,000 Pounds as bribe to one Mr. Esuabana, defendant’s servant, on demand by him to effect the change of money into the new Nigerian Currency Notes.
4. Further the plaintiff had stated that the 1,000 aforementioned was part of the total money given her to exchange into new Nigerian Currency notes.
5. The plaintiff also stated to the defendant’s servants and agents that the sum of money claimed by her in this action was owned in separate aliquot portions by different persons, each not being herself, and an aliquot part owned by herself.
6. The various part owners of the money in dispute in this action are not parties to this action as laid before the Court in particular the sum claimed being a summation in gross of the separate portions presented for exchange for persons not the plaintiff.
7. In addition a number of other deposits each of 100 Pounds and above made contemporaneously with the Federal Exchange Teams of the Defendants in the same area in dispute in this action were selected for investigation involving an additional 3,271 depositors which investigation must be carried out pari passu with the plaintiff’s case.
8. The magnitudinous and detailed exercise involved as aforementioned includes the subject of the plaintiff’s claim and has not been finalised.
9. Consequently until the conclusion of the exchange exercise the defendant cannot decide whether the money claimed by the plaintiff or any part thereof should be duly and rightly paid to the plaintiff by the defendant.

At the close of pleadings, Counsel for the plaintiff, on April 24, 1971, moved the Court for an order striking out the Statement of Defence on the ground that it disclosed no defence to the action and entering judgment for the plaintiff as per her writ. On April 27, 1971, the defendant prayed the Court for an order enabling the defendant to amend the Statement of Defence by adding thereto:

“In the alternative the defendant denies that the sum of money claimed by the plaintiff as owned by the plaintiff nor is it due and payable by the defendant to the plaintiff. And the defendant puts the plaintiff to the strictest proof thereof.”

In a considered ruling delivered on June 7, 1971, Dosunmu J. granted leave to the defendant to amend its Statement of Defence so as to include the new paragraph sought to be added. With regard to the plaintiff’s motion that the Statement of Defence be struck out, in that it disclosed no defence to the action, Counsel for the plaintiff argued that, apart from the admissions contained in paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Statement of Defence, there is nowhere else where the specific allegations made in paragraphs 3 and 5 of the Statement of Claim were specifically denied or refused to be admitted. The objection of Counsel for the plaintiff to the new paragraph 12 of the amended Statement of Defence was that it was a general traverse, but the learned trial judge observed as follows:

“In my view the new paragraph 12 of the amended defence is not a general traverse as we know it in practice. I do not think that it is even a general denial as i read it over again it seems to me to deal solely with the question of title or right to the money in question as raised in paragraph 5 of the statement of defence. It does not purport to traverse all the allegations in the statement of claim as if they were set out seratim and specifically traversed. In my opinion it only reinforces the plea that not only is the plaintiff owner of certain part of the money in question, but in the alternative she is not the owner of the money at all.”

The learned trial judge then concluded:

“Reading the defence as a whole I cannot say it is an admission of the plaintiff’s claim especially with regards to paragraphs 5 and 12 of the statement of defence vis-a-vis paragraph 3 of the claim. But I have no doubt in my mind that the defence as a whole is only a plausibly good one, and the Court ought not to strike it out in that event.”