Lekki-Ikoyi bridge: Bid to stay judgment suffers setback

    
Attempt by the Lagos State Government to obtain a stay of execution of the judgment which declared toll collection on the Lekki-Ikoyi bridge illegal, suffered a setback before a Federal High Court, Lagos, on Wednesday.

The hearing of government’s application for stay of execution of the judgment could not go on as the presiding judge, Justice Saliu Saidu, was unable to confirm if other parties in the suit had been duly served.

The judge said could not hear the application as there was no proof that the Attorney-General of the Federation and the National Inland Waterways had been served with the application.

Both the AGF and NIWA were both defendants in the suit in which judgment was delivered on March 27. The Lagos State Government and the Attorney-General of the state are the third and fourth defendants, respectively.

At the Wednesday’s proceedings when the application was scheduled for hearing, the Lagos State Attorney-General, Mr. Ade Ipaye, told the court that necessary fees for the service of the court processes on all parties had been paid.

However, the proof of service of the processes, according to the judge, was not yet in the court file.

The plaintiff, who filed the case and obtained judgment against the government, Mr. Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, also said he had served his counter-affidavit opposing the application on all the parties.

The state government had filed its motion for stay of execution on March 28, 2014, the day after the judgment was delivered.

It had on the same day filed its notice of appeal against the judgment before the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division.

Adegboruwa, is through his counter-affidavit dated April 3, 2014 and filed on the same day, urging the court to dismiss government’s motion for stay.

In the counter-affidavit deposed to by a litigation manager in Adegboruwa’s law firm, Oladapo Sofola, the lawyer urged the court to dismiss the motion as the government had refused to comply with the judgment since it was delivered.

“Since March 27, 2014, when the judgment of this honourable court was delivered, the applicant and other motorists using the said Lekki-Ikoyi have been paying,” his counter-affidavit read in part.

Justice Saidu had in his judgment, delivered on March 27, ruled that government could not collect tolls from the users of the bridge without a law conferring the power on it to do so in place.

But the government insisted in its appeal that contrary to the judgment  of the court, there was an existing  law which gave it power to collect tolls from the users of the bridge.