It is a Saturday morning and I should be sleeping or just chilling. But the restlessness from the heat and lack of electricity left me with nothing but my phone. Having exhausted my 5 candycrush lives and played my Words With Friends, I mistakenly turned to NWLR online.

The case I am reading has just brought all my hopes – that the present crop of the Nigerian Supreme Court bench will finally turn the corner and restore merit & substance over form & technicality – came crashing down. Sadly it appears we have to wait at least another 15 years.

Last night the Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo SAN while speaking at the 20th Year Memorial Symposium for the late Bankole Olumide Aluko, SAN censured the Nigerian Judiciary over their elevation of technicality over substantive justice. As always he gave hope.

With my hopes still high that redemption is on its way for at least one arm of government, I decided out of boredom to read the recently reported decision of the Supreme Court in Calabar Municipal Government v Etubom Eyo Honesty (2022) 2 NWLR (Pt. 1815) 403.

This appeal arose from a 1996 case filed at the FHC Calabar and the substance of the dispute was for the court to decide who are the appropriate parties to engage in the transportation of passengers and goods by road at Etim Edem Park & other parks in Calabar, Cross River State.

I don’t know what you were doing in 1996 but for me, I was in JS1, my dad had just been transferred from Lagos to Calabar and I had to change school from Govt College Eric Moore Surulere to Presbyterian Seminary Ohafia.

When the parties decided to approach the court in 1996 rather than resort to free for all violence which would not have been surprising in a car park dispute they expected justice. On the substance. They wanted to know who had actual control over the Etim Edem park.

As it turned out, in brining the claim, the 13 claimants sued 5 defendants, the first of which was CALABAR MUNICIPAL GOVT. The correct nomenclature ought to have been CALABAR MUNICIPAL LOCAL GOVT. You & I know who this refers to and the claimants knew who they intended to sue.

In 1997, the FHC granted the claim of the claimants (5 not 13 please) and held that they were the proper persons to control the parks. The defendants appealed. While hearing the case, the Court of Appeal on its own observed that LOCAL was omitted from the 1st Appellant’s name.

To avoid stories that touch, the claimants (now respondents) brought an application to correct the name of Calabar Municipal Govt to include Local. This is where it gets interesting. The Court of Appeal struck out the application as being unnecessary and said the name was okay.

The case got up to the Supreme Court. Now, by case I don’t mean the case of who is the appropriate person to control the Etim Edem Park but the question of whether Calabar Municipal Govt is a person known to law that can sue or be sued. Please recall that this is a 1996 case.

And so in June 2021, 25 years after the parties approached the court system to resolve the issue of who controls the Etim Edem Car Park in Calabar, the Supreme Court found that Calabar Municipal Government is not a juristic person because Local was omitted from the name.

In summary, this case was commenced when I was in JS1 and still dreaming of becoming a medical doctor. Over 10 years after I became a lawyer, the substance of the dispute has not been resolved. Instead we are haggling over the proper name of the 1st Appellant.

What further betrays the ridiculousness of the decision is that, even assuming that the name of Calabar Municipal Govt was wrong in the suit, they didn’t object and the FHC gave judgment. They filed the appeal themselves in that name before the CoA spotted it. So why punish the claimants?

Please see the dissenting opinion of Ogunwumiju JSC who described the approach of her learned brothers as mechanical justice & who criticised the unnecessary adherence to technicality which has been the bane of our jurisprudence at the expense of substantial justice. Whilst the dissenting opinion inspired some hope, it is difficult to snap out of the depression induced by the majority. Good morning.

-Orji Agwu Uka Esq is a Nigerian Lawyer and member of the Nigerian Bar Association