Confusion over who was briefed by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Mohammed Bello Adoke, to defend the federal government against the suit filed by 16 northern states for the payment of N7 billion as outstanding value of the assets of the defunct northern states marketing board stalled hearing of the case at the Supreme Court, as two senior advocates of Nigeria, Damien Dodo and Ade Okeaya-Ineh were both in court to represent the AGF.
The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Dahiru Musdapher who could not understand why the AGF would brief two lawyers for the same case was forced to adjourn the case to April 26 to allow the two senior counsel to sort out the confusion over representation.
In his address to the court Mr Dodo said that he was the first to be briefed but that he would try to accommodate Mr Okeaya-Ineh.
Not satisfied with the explanation, Justice Musdapher who was not satisfied with the explanation consulted other members of the panel of judges and then decided to adjourn the case to next month with a firm instruction to the lawyers to sort out who between the two of them would represent the federal government.
16 of the northern region’s 19 states are in the Supreme Court to compel the federal government to pay them N7 billion as outstanding values of the assets of the defunct Northern States Marketing Board (NSMB).
The board was taken over by the federal government in 1977 from the then north-western, north-central, Kano, north-eastern and central-western states.
The states as presently constituted consist of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara.
In the suit before the Supreme Court, the 16 states said in 1977, the then federal military government forcefully took over the assets of NSMB by virtue of decree no. 29 of 1977 without paying for its total value.
