Abacha loses choice property in Port Harcourt

The Supreme Court has declared that the legal title in a property situated at Plot 288, Diobu GRA, Phase 11, Port Harcourt where the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, built a mansion, did not belong to him.

In a unanimous judgment delivered on Friday, five justices of the Supreme Court held that the legal title in the said property belonged to a retired Permanent Secretary in the Rivers State Government, Mr. Samuel Eke-Spiff.

The apex court also held that the property was illegally transferred to Abacha, having been originally allocated to Eke-Spiff.

Justice Pius Aderemi, who delivered the judgment with four other justices concurring, faulted the circumstances under which the Rivers State Military Administrator illegally transferred the property to the late Abacha.

Justice Aderemi said, “The 1st Plaintiff, (a retired Permanent Secretary in the Rivers State Government) was allocated a plot of land at Diobu GRA, Port Harcourt by the Government of Rivers State.

“The Building Lease was registered in his name as No 78 in Volume 25 of the Lands Registry in the Office at Port Harcourt. He submitted a building plan for approval, but up till now, his plan has not been approved.

“What he later discovered was that his right of occupancy was revoked without any notice to him and of course no compensation was paid to him.

“ It eventually came to his knowledge that the same piece of land was allocated to Abacha, now deceased.”

Eke-Spiff had dragged the Rivers State Government and the Military Administrator of the state to court, asking that the revocation of his C of O as well as the subsequent allocation of the land to Abacha, who was then then the Chief of Defence Staff, was illegal and unconstitutional.

But In their defence, both the Administrator and the state government claimed that Eke-Spiff’s C of O was rightly revoked because he failed to build within two years of the allocation.

They also argued that the case was statute-barred, having not been commenced within three months after the revocation.

In November, 18, 1999, the trial court ruled in favour of the plaintiff and held that the suit was not statute-barred since the notice of the revocation of the C of O was hidden from him.

The state did not challenge the judgment on appeal but the Administrator/Executors of the Estate of Gen. Sani Abacha filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt. The appeal court dismissed the appeal.

Still dissatisfied, the Administrator of Abacha Estate appealed to the Supreme Court.

But the Supreme Court in its judgment, held that the administrator of the estate of general Abacha was not a juristic person and could, therefore, not file an appeal