The Kano State Government claims the garnishment order blocking its funds, which was obtained from an Abuja High Court by some of the victims of its demolitions, is bogus.
Kano was also given the assurance on Wednesday by the government that the state was still being run through its various accounts.
Mr. Haruna Isa-Dederi, the state’s attorney general and commissioner of justice, says as much.
Isa-Dederi told reporters that a court within the same jurisdiction could not possibly hear an appeal of a decision it had made years earlier.
He added that the Kano state administration was aware that Justice Simon Amobeda of the Federal High Court in Kano had rendered a judgment of N30 billion that included both punitive and compensatory damages.
On behalf of the victims, the Incorporated Trustees of Masallacin Eid Shop Owners and Traders were awarded a favorable decision.
Thus, Isa-Dederi questioned how the same court with the same jurisdiction would rule in Kano.
He claimed that the decision “was even done out of jurisdiction of the court,” and this was the subject of an appeal as well, raising the question of how a court of like mind could make a different ruling on the same subject.
The Kano state government filed an appeal, according to Isa-Dederi, because the Federal High Court lacked jurisdiction to hear the issue. The appeal court received all the documents of the hearing because the dispute was about property ownership in the first place.
The state chief law officer stated that the government had filed a plea to postpone execution pending the appeal even prior to the appeal, posing the question, “so how can same court even sit on same case?”
In addition, he attested to the fact that the Court of Appeal had already received the record of the Federal High Court proceedings.
The attorney general also revealed that the application for a stay of execution was already set for review by the Court of Appeal for December 4.
He emphasized that the case is still ongoing before the Appeal Court, so any decisions the Federal High Court makes on the matter would be pointless and would be equivalent to a court sitting in appeal on its own decision.
Isa-Dederi reaffirmed that the Land Use Act’s provisions, which gave the government the authority to award and cancel land allocations, backed the acts of the Kano state administration.
He emphasized that the properties’ demolition was carried out in the greater good of the public.
