- The 2nd, 3rd & 6th Applicants not been victims do not have the locus standi to
sue on their behalf but can maintain an action on behalf of the Muslim
members of the Southern Kaduna crisis.
- In all, the court dismiss the Respondent’s objection and hold that all the
Applicants have locus standi to sue in the various capacities canvassed above.
73. The Court will now proceed to examine the second head of the preliminary
objection which deals with the cause of action to institute this suit.
74. Whether the applicant has established any cause of action to institute this suit.
75. The Respondent contend that the Applicants have not disclosed any reasonable
cause of action against them. A cause of action is a matter for which an action can
be brought, a legal right predicated on facts upon which an action may be sustained.
It is the right to bring a suit based on factual situations disclosing the existence of a
legal right. It is often used to signify the subject matter of a complaint or claim on
which a given action or suit is grounded whether or not legally maintainable. See
INCORPORATED TRUSTEES OF FISCAL AND CIVIC RIGHTS
ENLIGHTENMENT FOUNDATION V. FRN (2016), ECW/CCJ/JUD/16/18
The Court also defined cause of action with reference to the case of Letang v. Cooper
(1960) 2 All ER 929 as:
“the reason or the facts that entitle a person to sue or bring his case to the
Court, or a factual situation that entitles one person to obtain from the Court
a remedy against another person”. See SERAP V FEDERAL REPUBLIC
OF NIGERIA (2014) ECW/CCJ/JUD/16/14, para 77,
76. The reason adduced by the Applicants for instituting this suit is the alleged
failure of the Respondent to provide adequate and timely security measures to curtail
the mayhem that occurred in the April 2011 post-election crisis, having received
privileged information of the impending attacks which led to loss of lives and
property in Zonkwa, Kafanchan and other neighbouring villages. The Applicants
further allege that persons who survived the pogrom have been made refugees,
having been rendered homeless, with their farmlands ravaged and their livestock
stolen or killed. Applicants’ further state that children have been made orphans, girls
raped, and wives now widowed and with no means of livelihood to take care of their
surviving young ones; about 189 women have giving birth to babies in exceptionally
difficult condition; the internally displaced persons are living in very pathetic, sub
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