N26.7m Supreme Court judgement debt: Clearing agent files motion to stop selling his house as ordered by court

       

An Aba-based clearing agent and Supreme Court judgment debtor, Paschal Nwabufoh has filed a motion for stay of execution at Aba High Court in Abia State seeking to stop the sale of his house at No. 114 Cameroon Road, Aba.

Odogwublog.com reports that the Supreme Court had in its judgement in suit No. SC/211/2003 delivered on June 24, 2011, ordered Nwabufoh to pay a total sum of N26,787,820 to one Gabriel Nwolisah, an Onitsha-based importer for failure to clear his imported goods at Port-Harcourt Wharf between 1984 till  the judgement date.

The Supreme Court Order was reaffirmed by an Onitsha High Court presided over by Justice Pete Obiora who on December 20, 2012, ordered that Nwabufoh's buildings at No. 114 Cameroon Road, Aba and another one at his family compound at Akezi Village, Awkuzu in Oyi Local Government Area of Anambra State be subjected to auction sale to satisfy the judgement of the Supreme Court.

Nwabufoh, the judgement debtor, through his legal counsel, Emeka Francis Ofodile, SAN, had earlier headed to the Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu and filed a motion for stay of execution against Justice Obiora's reaffirmation of the Supreme Court judgement, but On July 4, 2014, the Appeal Court struck out the motion for stay of execution for lack of merit.

Following that development, the buildings at Awkuzu and Aba were attached for sale by both Onitsha and Aba High courts and as a result, the auction sale for Aba building was fixed for October 20, 2014.

But Nwabufoh, again went to Aba High Court with four other persons who claimed to be trustees of the building at 114 Cameroon Road, Aba already marked for sale and filed this current motion for stay of execution, arguing that they are trustees and executors to the building.

But not satisfied with the long time frame of hearing date, the Supreme Court judgement creditor, Nwolisah, through his legal counsel, Obi Ulasi, SAN, filed a counter motion where he stated that neither himself nor his lawyer was served the motion for stay of execution by the judgement debtor.

In seeking for an accelerated hearing of the motion for stay of execution, Nwolisah therefore filed a counter motion asking the court to bring the hearing date down because according to him, the December 17 adjourned date was not only too far but also a ploy to continue to frustrate the execution of the Supreme Court judgement, by the judgement debtor and those he just brought into the matter.

 The court has however fixed November 19, 2014 for mentioning/hearing of the motion for accelerated hearing filed by Nwolisah, the judgement creditor.