• Seeking to set aside the judgement of an Abuja High Court which dismissed a suit she filed to reclaim her late father’s assets
  

The daughter of a late President of the Customary Court of Appeal in Abuja, Justice Moses Bello, has lodged an appeal to challenge how her father’s properties were shared.

The appellant, Ann Eniyamire, alleged that she was shortchanged by the Executor of her late father’s will.

She is seeking to set aside the judgement of an Abuja High Court which dismissed a suit she filed to reclaim her late father’s assets.

Eniyamire alleged that the deceased judge had in his will, instructed that all his assets should be shared amongst his wife and eight children, using 11.11 per cent sharing formula.

Cited as 1st and 2nd defendants in the substantive suit marked: CV/667/2024, were; Reverend Father Ezekiel John and Christ the King Catholic Church Okene Parish.

According to the litigant, the 1st defendant adopted a sharing formula of 4.16 per cent as against the 11.11 percent instructed by her late father.

In the legal process she filed through her lawyer, Yahuza Mahraz, Eniyamire urged the court to declare that she is entitled to 11.11 per cent of all her late father’s properties, including his estates.

She further prayed the court to set aside the decision of the defendants and relieve them of their duties as Executors of her father’s will.

Following an application by the appellant, Justice M. A. Madugu, on October 14, 2024, issued an order that stopped the sale of the late judge’s assets, including a disputed property at No. 41 Panama Street, Maitama, Abuja.

The court specifically ordered security agencies to arrest anyone attempting to sale off the property.

However, shortly after the interim order was issued, the case-file was transferred to another judge, a development that led the Claimant to petition the Chief Judge of the High Court, Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf, urging him not to allow his office to be used to subvert the course of justice and fair hearing in the matter.

Meanwhile, delivering judgment in the matter last Wednesday, the new judge in the matter, Justice Mohamed Zubairu, dismissed the case of the Claimant.

Justice Zubairu held that the Codicil (a legal amendment to a Will), which was relied upon by the late judge’s daughter, was invalid.

He held that the document was “more of a private letter’’ written by the late judge to his lawyer, Dr. Alex Izinyon, SAN, stressing that such correspondence did not meet the legal requirement of a Codicil under the Wills Act.

“A letter written by an Attestor but not signed by at least two witnesses cannot be considered a valid Codicil. Though titled ‘Codicil,’ it does not satisfy Section 9 of the Wills Act,” the trial judge held.

More so, the court held that the word ‘Can’ in the Codicil, afforded the Executor of the Will, some level of discretion in the distribution of the properties.

“Assuming I am wrong, paragraph 2 of the Codicil provides that all the properties in the name of the Attestor can be disposed of and shared among his wife and children.

“I hold that the choice of the word ‘can’ in paragraph 2 of the Codicil was deliberate. The Attestor accorded the defendant some degree of discretion in relation to the distribution of the properties.

“There is a clear difference between the words ‘can’ and ‘shall’. They conveyed different meanings. It is my belief that the statement that ‘all my properties can be disposed off and shared with my wife and children,’ gives the defendants some degree of discretion in deciding how to distribute the properties among his wife and children,” Justice Zubairu added.

Consequently, he held that Eniyamire was not entitled to 1/9th of her father’s properties and upheld the defendants’ distribution formula.

“Consequently, all the reliefs sought by the claimant are hereby refused. The suit is dismissed,” the court held.

Dissatisfied with the judgment which she described as a travesty of justice, the late judge’s daughter, through her team of lawyers, vowed to set it aside at the appellate court.

Speaking through her lawyer, Eniyamire, said: “I am saddened by our nation’s judiciary today, where a judge can aid a party of his own choice by introducing new facts not deposed to by any party and arguing such facts based on his personal beliefs.

“This has led to a miscarriage of justice. The judgment in its entirety is contradictory, approbatory and reprobatory, which cannot stand the test of fairness and natural justice.

“The same judge who held in his rulling on the defendants’ notice of preliminary objection that the Claimant’s Suit is not challenging the validity of a Will/Codicil, and is not challenging the grant of probate, as the issue of challenging a validity of a Will/ Codicil only goes to Probate Registry, went ahead to challenge the validity of the Will and Codicil on his own, without any party raising it for him, thereby downgrading the high court to the position of a Probabte Registry.

“We reject the judgment in its entirety and we are going on Appeal,” she added.