N7.3B Refund: Supreme Court To Hear FG, Northern Governors In Feb 3013

ABUJA, September 20, (THEWILL) - The Supreme Court on Thursday fixed 14th February 2012 as date for the hearing of a suit filed by 16 northern governors seeking to reclaim N7.3bn from the Federal Government.

The money in contention is the outstanding value of assets of the extinct Northern States Marketing Board (NSMB).

Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mariam Aloma Murkhtar led a panel of seven justices to fix the date after dispensing with preliminary issues stalling the hearing.

One of such issues was a preliminary objection by the Federal Government, requesting the court to dismiss the suit because it had become barred by statute since the governors waited 28 years before reopening the matter. Ade-Okeaya Inneh (SAN) filed the Federal Government’s objection on behalf of the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation.

Sixteen of the total 19 states in the North had invoked the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court asking it to compel the Federal Government to pay them N7bn as outstanding value of the assets of NSMB, which was taken over by the Federal Government in 1977 from the then Northwestern, North-central, Kano, Northeastern and Central-western states.

Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara instituted the suit, naming the AGF as the sole defendant.

The states are accusing the Federal Military Government of forcefully taking over the assets of NSMB in 1977 by virtue of Decree No. 29 of 1977. A valuation before the assets were transferred to the Federal Government had put the total value of all the assets at N42m.

“Out of the said N42m only N1.1m was paid to the NSMB by the defendant leaving a balance of N40 million,” the sates claimed, putting the cost of immovable assets and produce taken over at N11m and N18m respectively. Bags, tarpaulin, twine and cotton stores complexes were put at N2m.

They added that the Federal Government admitted, as at 27th July 1983, owing them N10.3m, which when converted to prevailing exchanging rate of N150.00 to $1, translates to N3bin. Another N3.9bn is due to the, they argued, courtesy of the current equivalent of alleged undisputed claim of N13 million.

The states exhibited various documents, including correspondence between them and the Federal Government, copies of demand notices where they threatened to go to court if the alleged debt is not liquidated, the last dated 1st November 2010