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An order directing the Federal Republic of Nigeria to set up an independent
panel of inquiry to look into the extrajudicial killing of the deceased persons;
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An order directing the Defendant "to tender an apology to the Plaintiff by
publishing the said letter of apology in five national dailies."
In response to the affirmations made in the Application filed by the Plaintiff, the
Defendant invokes Preliminary Objections and reacts to the merits of the case
by denying the facts alleged by the Plaintiff. That response was contained in the
Notice of Preliminary Objection dated 18 December 2012 and filed at the
Registry of the ECOWAS Court of Justice on 21January 2013. The notice was
accompanied by an address in support of the Preliminary Objection.
In the first document of the Preliminary Objection referred to above, the Federal
Republic of Nigeria asserts that the suit filed before the ECOWAS Court had
earlier been filed by the Plaintiff before the Federal High Court sitting in Benin,
Edo State, Nigeria; that the suit before the Federal High Court is still pending and
so the case before the ECOWAS Court will amount to abuse of court process,
since the Plaintiff cannot maintain the same matter based on the same facts
before two different courts, and that in the event that it is determined that the
suit before the Federal High Court was decided against them, the Plaintiff cannot
come to re-litigate the same issue before
the Community Court, as the
Community Court has no appellate jurisdiction over the Federal High Court of
Nigeria.
In another breath, the Federal Republic of Nigeria contends that the Court
cannot adjudicate on the dispute brought before it by the Plaintiff, on the
ground that "the unlawful killing of the deceased persons is a criminal offence
and the Honourable Court has no jurisdiction over criminal matters."
Likewise, the Defendant pleads that indeed none of the Plaintiff's rights is
violated; that even if one is to suppose that the matter concerns the right to life,
only persons alive, by definition, may claim such right,. and that "the Plaintiff
having acknowledged the fact that the deceased persons were murdered, their
(i.e. the deceased's) right to life have thus become extinguished and are
unenforceable by the Plaintiff or any other person." (Pages 10 and 11 of
Defendant's Address in Support of Preliminary Objections).
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