The Branch Controller West African Examinations Council, Ilorin & Anor V. Kazeem Saidu Alade & Ors (2011)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report – COURT OF APPEAL

JOSEPH SHAGBAOR IKYEGH, J.C.A (Delivering the Leading Judgment)

The appeal is from the decision of the High Court of Justice of Kwara State holding at Ilorin (the court below) challenging both interlocutory ruling of the court below overruling the appellants’ objections to the jurisdiction of the court below over them as federal agencies suable only in the Federal High Court and entitled to the defence under the Public Officers (Protection) Act (CAP. p.41) Laws of the Federation, 2004, and the final decision of the court below declaring the appellants negligent and ordering them to issue another West African senior school certificate bearing the correct passport photograph of the 1st respondent to the 1st respondent.

Put concisely, the 1st respondent sat for the West African Senior School certificate examination conducted by the appellants while he was a student under the 2nd and 3rd respondents. At the end of the marking of the examination, the appellants issued the 1st respondent with a West African Senior School certificate with the passport photograph of another candidate, one Adeoye Yinka, fixed on the certificate. The 1st respondent brought an originating summons before the court below requesting for the rectification of the school certificate by the appellants to bear the true identity of the 1st respondent. The 2nd and 3rd respondents were codefendants in the originating summons.

Two preliminary objections – whether the suit was triable only in the Federal High court, and, whether the public Officers (Protection) Act (supra) availed the appellants- were heard and disposed of against the appellants by the court below.

The suit then proceed on the merit where the court below found in its judgment that the 2nd and 3rd respondents, as agent of the appellants, mistakenly fixed the passport photograph of one Adeoye Yinka on 1st respondent’s slot in the school album used to conduct the examinations, which misled the appellants to issue the 1st respondent the West African senior school certificate bearing the passport photograph of another candidate, one Adeoye Yinka, instead of the 1st respondent’s passport photograph.

The court below ended its judgment by finding the appellants, as principal of the 2nd and 3rd respondents, liable for issuing the 1st respondent a West African senior school certificate bearing the passport photograph of another candidate, one Adeoye Yinka, instead of the 1st respondent’s passport photograph. The court below ordered the appellants to issue 1st respondent with a fresh West African Senior School certificate bearing the identity of the 1st respondent by fixing his actual passport photograph on the certificate.

A notice of appeal called additional notice of appeal but titled “notice of appeal No.2” was dated and filed on 04/01/2011. The appellants, however, withdrew the additional notice of appeal titled “notice of appeal No.2” in page 2 of their joint brief of argument. The withdrawn notice of appeal No.2 is, for convenience, hereby formally struck out.

The appellants’ joint notice of appeal dated 05/11/2010, but filed on 09/11/2010, conveyed seven grounds of appeal covering the overruled preliminary objections on jurisdiction and time bar and the judgment on the amended originating summons.

A joint brief of argument prepared on 08/03/2011 by Dr. S. A. Bello of learned counsel for the appellants and filed on 10/3/2011, but deemed properly filed and served on 19/04/2011, contained two issues for determination tied to grounds 1, 2 and 3 of the notice of appeal for the first issue and grounds 4, 5, 6 and 7 thereof for the second issue. It was adopted by appellants’ learned counsel at the hearing of the appeal on 13/10/2011.

For clearness, the issues for determination distilled by the appellants’ read:

“ISSUE NUMBER ONE

“Whether the trial Kwara High Court was right when it assumed jurisdiction in the suit of the Claimant/1st Respondent.

No 2

Whether the trial court was right in its decision that the wrongful act of the 2nd and 3rd respondents was an authorized act of the Appellants and whether the trial court was right when it discountenanced the Appellants’ further written address on the issue of the relationship between the parties which the court raised suo motu”.