Court Adjourns Okene Royal Family, Dangote Group Land Tussle, Advise Parties On Settlement
A Federal l High Court Sitting in Lokoja has once again adjourned the disputed mining lease case between Okene Royal family and Dangote Group, AICO, Cadastre Office and Ministry of Mining till September 25th 26th and 29th for accelerated hearing.
The trial Judge, Justice S. B Onuh granted the application for adjournment following the inability of counsel to 2nd and 3rd defendants to attend the court session on Tuesday.
Earlier, the Mining Cadastre office had forwarded a written application to the Court Registrar notifying the inability to come to court.
This was contained in a letter titled” application for adjournment in Suit no FHC /Lkj CS/23/2017 between Prince Mahmoud Sanni Atta and others and MICO and others
While giving his ruling ,the judge also suggested that the parties should consider the option of out of court settlement for amicable resolution of the matter.
However, the counsel to plaintiffs, Mr. Joseph Akosu who did not object to the advice, noted that it was not the plaintiffs that would initiate the move, but the defendants.
The representative and head of Onumah Atta Omidivi family, His Royal Highness, Mahmud Sanni Atta lamented that the suit was instituted since 2017 to determine who will continue to take royalty after the expiration of the 25 years old mining lease in 2033 which was claimed to have been illegally acquired.
He lamented that neither AICO nor Dangote Cement had obtained the consent of the family and Community Development Association before mining, stressing that there was no indication that the companies wanted to do so in accordance with law.
“The land Oguda in Okene local government area consisted of five axis Agama, Ohundumi, Obu Atabi Chichi and Adagu areas all consisted of limestone in commercial quantity. In 1973 AICO, Ado Ibrahim and company limited, illegally acquired a mining lease to take over the property and leased out to Okpella Cement Company with a 20 percent share.
“In view of the above, in 1985 my family went to the State High Court in Offa which took 11 good years before ruling in suit number Kws/LO /18/78 before Justice D.I Adeniyi on the 15th January. The Okpella gave a wave there that it was AICO that leased the land to them, but when the court summoned AICO and failed to attend the ruling now indicted the AICO and Okpella.
“Since then, in 1985, no one came to the family, instead they manipulated their ways again in illegality .Okpella decided to sell their factory by illegally giving themselves three mining leases to cover the area namely, 18912, 18913 and 18911and sold them to BUA Cement. AICO went further to split his initial mining lease 17825 into two parts that carry that area too namely ML , 2541 and 788. AICO now sold one edge to Dangote ML 2541 which now lapped BUA cement.
“Both went to Federal High Court in Benin to slug it out via FHC/B/CS/2016. It was ruled that the land belonged to Kogi State, but AICO sold it to Dangote.
“The suit was to determine the location of the land and backed up with a 1985 judgment where the Okpella court mentioned that it was AICO that forced them there,” he said.
However, the head of family of Onumah Atta Omadivi, His Royal Highness, Mahmud Sanni Atta disclosed that the family has never objected to iut of court settlement but no one is coming while the family will not be allowed to be continually cheated in this matter no matter how long.
