Tina Amanda
A Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt has adjourned for parties to respond to processes in the suit filed by fifty-six aggrieved Presidential Amnesty Programme beneficiaries, against the Attorney-General of the Federation, Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Amnesty Programme Professor Charles Dokubo and Heritage Bank PLC.
During the court proceeding Counsel to the 3rd Defendant, Heritage Bank PLC filed an application seeking for the name of the 3rd Defendant to be struck out from the matter as they are just nominal Defendant in the case.
He further filed an application requesting the court to grant him time to go through the processes served on him by the Plaintiff’s counsel, adding that he was only served the process forty-eight hours ago.
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Counsels to the 1st Defendant, the Attorney-General of the Federation and 2nd Defendant, Amnesty Boss Charles Dokubo were not present in court when the matter was mentioned.
The presiding Judge, Justice Isaq Mohammed Sani, adjourned to the 22nd of January for Counsels to take time and respond to the processes served on them.
Recall that, the Plaintiffs are praying the court to reinstate them as beneficiaries of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, as they were unlawfully and strangely removed from the programme after being duly registered, participated, concluded the demobilization, rehabilitation and integration programme from 2009 to October 2015.
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They also prayed the court to place an order of mandatory injunction compelling the Defendants to remit with immediate effect, the sum of one hundred and Forty-one million, two hundred and forty-five thousand (141,245,000) naira as stipends and allowance being owed from October 2015 till March 2019.
They also demanded one hundred million (100,000,000) naira as damages.
Sammie Somiari, Counsel to the 3rd Defendant, Heritage Bank PLC, told our correspondent, Tina Amanda, that the Plaintiffs have not brought any claims.
“We have indeed filed an application to strike out the names of the 3rd Defendant because the Plaintiffs have no claim or whatever.
“However, the application is yet to be taking because the Plaintiffs have just served us with a reply to that application.
“The case is essentially between the Plaintiffs, 1st and 2nd Defendant, we the 3rd Defendant as nominal Defendant are merely agents of a disclosed principal”
On his part, Asobiyata Ojenamah, Counsel to the Plaintiffs, said what they hope to achieve is to have their clients put back into the programme.
“My client are bonafide beneficiaries of the programme and strangely they were just removed. These are people that renounced, surrendered their arms after the militancy struggle.
“They participated in the training, having their stipends paid and all of a sudden they were removed. One thing we should bear in mind that the total amount of Amnesty beneficiaries does not increase, it is fixed.
“Each month money are allocated to these people and if the money is not coming to our client, it means the money is going elsewhere, to some other people who are most likely not in the programme. So there is a need to bring forth this issue for our client to have a case in court”
