SHELL Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) can now breath a sigh of relief following the Supreme Court ruling on the disputed Bonny Island Terminal property located in Okporo Rumukoroshe Town in the Obio/Akpor Local Council of Port Harcourt, Rivers State.In a unanimous judgment, their lordships presided over by Dahiru Musdapher, granted an unconditional stay of the judgments of both the trial and appellate courts, while also dismissing the preliminary objections of the opposing parties. Both lower courts had agreed to the taking over of the vast land by the land owning families, who had sued the oil firm.Justice Bode Rhodes-Vivour in his lead judgment had said: 'In my view, if a stay of execution is not granted the beneficiaries of the judgment, would go into the Shell Residential Area (the res) driven by all kinds of desires, the end is best imagined. The res may be destroyed before the appeal is determined. A return to the status quo ante bellum in the event the appellant wins would be impossible, and that would be bad for the streams of justice, which must be kept pure at all times.'After examining affidavit evidence the appellant/applicant has been able to show its huge investments on the res known as the Shell Residential Area. Their staff resides there now. If a stay of execution is not granted its activities would be crippled. Everybody on the land would be asked to leave. This is to my mind amounts to special, exceptional and strong reasons why this application should be granted. Considering equity and fairness the rights of the claimants to the land ought to be put on hold pending the hearing and determination of the appeal. The balance of convenience is clearly on the side of the appellant/applicant.'Justice Rhodes-Vivour added: 'Accordingly, a stay of execution is hereby granted pending the determination of this appeal.'This followed an application argued by Chief Richard Akinjide (SAN).The Court of Appeal had nullified the firm's Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) ceding Bonny Terminal land in Port Harcourt, to it. The state government had 11 years ago, given the landed property to the Dutch firm. The court also held that the governor of a state in his official capacity and under the Land Use Act, particularly Section 28, could not had revoked a right of occupancy vested in a person and vest same on another.The trial court in its judgment had concluded that the C of O Shell obtained for the Bonny Terminal land was un-constitutional on the ground that the firm did not seek the consent of the respondents ' the land owning family who are its landlord before applying for the certificate.Piqued by the state government's issuance of the document to Shell, the respondents through their counsel, Lucius Nwosu (SAN), in an originating summons before a Port-Harcourt High Court, had asked for a declaration that at all material times, are customary owners and consenters being landlord of Shell in respect to all the parcel of land lying and situated between towns of Bonny and Finima contained in a deed of tenancy made on July 22, 1958 and registered as No. 51 at page 51, Volume 5 of the Lands Registry in the office at Enugu now kept in Port-Harcourt.They also sought a declaration from the court that upon the coming into effect of the Land Use Act in 1978, they were deemed to be grantees or holders of the right of occupancy over the land covered by the said deed of tenancy.In seeking an order to set aside the C of O, the families insisted that Shell in a clandestine manner obtained the certificate over their land and constituted a challenge of denial of the title of their claim as landlords of Shell, which has forfeited its right as tenant in respect of the land.Nwosu had during the trial said that prior to obtaining the C of O, the respondents had directed him to renegotiate the loss of user and economic rents payable to them by Shell under the 1958 lease.This was acknowledged by Shell, which had assured the Bonny monarch, the Amanyanabo of Grand Bonny, in December 1998 that it would respond to the request for a renegotiation of the lease in a month's time.But surreptitiously, the families said the firm rather opted to apply for the C of O, which was eventually issued to it on March 15, 1999 by the military governor of Rivers State.The Bonny and Finima families' prayer that the court declare that Shell's decision to have secretly obtain a C of O from the state government without the consent of the original owners of the land was unconstitutional, null, void and of no effect, was eventually granted.And dissatisfied with the judgment, Shell filed a notice of appeal on four grounds. The oil firm later filed additional nine grounds of appeal through its counsel, Olu Daramola (SAN).Delivering judgment on the matter recently, Justice Eko observed that there was no evidence that the government of Rivers State, before issuing the 1999 C of O revoked the 1958 lease and the title of the respondents to the said land or gave them the opportunity to be heard.The judge said it was an abuse of the governor's statutory power to revoke the grant of right of occupancy vested in one private person and grant it to another. The jurist therefore declared that the issuance of the C of O to Shell, being a tenant to the respondents was null, void, unconstitutional and of no effect.
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