Court orders FG to pay Delta $1.638bn derivative arrears

A Federal High Court, Abuja, on Monday, ordered the Federal Government to pay $1.638 billion to Delta Government being 13 per cent derivative sum due as arrears of revenue payable to the oil-rich state.

Justice Donatus Okorowo, while delivering the judgement, held that being a suit instituted to recover revenue accruing to the state government, it qualified for the undefended list.

Okorowo ruled that the development made the court to declare the plaintiff’s case as “unchallenged.”

While the Attorney-General of Delta is the plaintiff, the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) is the sole defendant in the suit.

The plaintiff, in the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/660/2012 and filed on July 12 by his counsel, Ken Njemanze (SAN), urged the court to compel the AGF to pay five per cent of $50 billion recovered as additional revenue accrued to the Nigerian government.

Justice Okorowo dismissed the AGF’s preliminary objections, challenging the court’s jurisdiction to entertain the suit as well as the mode in which the case was instituted as ‘undefended list.’

Okorowo had, in an ex-parte application on July 22, ruled that the “plaintiff’s writ of summons be marked and placed on the undefended list.”

The judge, therefore, granted all the reliefs of the Delta government.

“The suit succeeds on its merit and all the reliefs sought by plaintiff are granted,” he ruled.

It would be recalled that the Federal High Court, Abuja had, in June, gave a similar order that the Federal Government should pay $951 million to the Bayelsa Government as 13 per cent derivative sum due as arrears of revenue.

Also, the court ordered the Federal Government to pay the sum of $3.3 billion to Rivers and Akwa Ibom governments, being their revenue share from crude oil sales.

The Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and Rivers governments had sued the AGF at the Supreme Court, demanding an upward adjustment of the shares of revenues accruing to the Nigerian government whenever the price of crude oil exceeds 20 dollars per barrel.