The High Court sitting at Yola, Adamawa State, presided over by Hon. Justice Kyanson Samuel Lawanson, has delivered a judgement in favour of a Jos-based mining company, Elipse Industries Limited, over a suit involving it and Ajia Global Fleet Concept Limited.
The plaintiff, Ajiya Global Fleet Concept, now the judgement debtor, had dragged Elipse Industries Limited, now the judgement creditor, before the court for trespass and a declaration of title in respect of the disputed lands and the defendant’s mining site situated at Gidan Zuma, Sugu District, in Ganye Local Government Area of Adamawa State.
In its statement of claim, Ajiya Global Fleet Concept averred that it acquired the lands from the original owners for valuable consideration via a sale agreement executed on February 8, 2022, and therefore sought a declaration of title and restraining order against the defendant/judgment creditor, its servants, agents, privies, or any other person by whatever name from further trespassing into the plaintiff’s land.
Conversely, to the claim of the plaintiff, the defendant, Elipse Industries, posited before the Court that in 2019, it was granted consent by the land owners with which it acquired a mineral title from the Federal Government to mine copper and manganese at Gidan Zuma, Sugu District, in Ganye Local Government Area.
According to the defendant/judgment creditor, its licence was approved after it submitted the requisite supporting documents, fulfilled all the requirements for exploration, and acquired all legal rights, including an exploration licence from the Nigeria Mining Cadastre Office (MCO).
The Defendant/Judgment Creditor argued that the plaintiff/Judgment Debtor emerged from nowhere with a licence in respect of the same mining site, hence overlapping on the existing licence of the Defendant/Judgment Creditor. As a sequel to a complaint to the Ministry of Mines and Steel, Cadastre Abuja, the purported licence of the Judgement Debtor was recalled, withdrawn, and cancelled.
It furthered the argument and submission of the judgement creditor that the purported sales agreement tendered in evidence by the judgement debtor was fraudulently obtained as the land owners did not sell their respective lands to anybody anywhere in the word.
When testified before the Court, the land owners denied outright that they did not sell or contact anybody to sell their respective lands to either the plaintiff or anybody anywhere in the world, and in fact, they have never seen the plaintiff or any of its representatives. When further shown the purported sales agreements, they denied signing them at all.
In his judgement, Hon. Justice Kyanson Samuel Lawanson, having examined the nitty-gritty of the pleadings exchanged by the parties, rejected the purported sales agreement, having found it to have been procured out of fraud, and in the whole summarily dismissed the plaintiff’s case for want of merit.
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