An Oyo State High Court sitting in Oyo town has said that the order restraining the state government from further works on the 10,000 Metric Tonnes 4-Bin Silo and Supply of Combined Silo Equipment at Awe Oyo, Oyo State, still subsists.
OYO INSIGHT recalls that RAHVET International Limited, the initial contractor of the silo, had dragged the state government and three others to court over attempt to terminate the project.
RAHVET International Limited, had recently filed a contempt charge at same court for flouting a court order which restrained the defendants from the project site.
It was learnt that the state government had allegedly re-awarded the contract without any breach by the Rahvet International Limited, an action which made the company to approach the court.
The court had ordered the parties to stay action in the suit numbered HOY/06/2019 in a ruling delivered on April 9, 2019.
The April 9 sitting had granted the prayers of the April 3 motion exparte of the claimant, filed by Bode Elemide & Co Legal Practioners and Notaries, for interim injunctions restraining the defendants, commissioners, permanent secretaries, agents, servants, privies from forcefully taking over and breaking into the project site of the 10,000 metric tonnes 4 bin silos project situated at Oyo-Awe road by Awe junction, Oyo town pending the determination of the interlocutory application.
Furthermore, the Justice Yerima sitting had also issued an order of interim injunction restraining the defendants and other associates from tampering with any of the equipment stored by the applicant within the premises of the project site or in any way attempt to install equipment without active and direct participation of the claimant and its technical partners, that is, China National Heavy Machine Corporation (CHMC), pending the determination of the interlocutory application.
While filing a contempt proceeding on Thursday, counsel to the claimant, Bode Elemide relying on order 42 Rules 9 & 10 of the Oyo state High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules, 2010, held that the defendants flouted the order of the court on April 10, 2019 by breaking the padlocks to the gate of the site to enable them gain entry into the site.
Upon breaking their way into the project site, Elemide also notified the court that the “invaders” poured libation and conducted some rituals on the site in outright disobedience of the order of injunction against the defendants/respondents.
The court later mandated the Governor of Oyo state, the state Attorney general and two others to on May 14 appear before it for alleged contempt of court.
Only last week, Barrister Bode Elemide, counsel to RAHVET International Limited, informed the court that the Oyo State government has re-awarded the ongoing silo project in Oyo to an unknown contractor.
Elemide in a further affidavit submitted to the Oyo high court, Awe, presided over by Justice Iyabo Yerima, expressed shock over the re-award of the contract to an unknown contractor at huge sum.
He said that the re-awarding of the contract is contained in a letter dated May 13 and issued the State Commissioner of Works and Transport.
At today’s sitting, the defendants through their counsel, Barr Najeem Ajibola brought a further affidavit in respect of the one filed on April 8, 2019. The judge, Justice Iyabo Yerima, however said the affidavit is not yet in the court. The defendants had sought to vacate the contempt injunction.
Arguing, Bode Elemide, who is counsel to the claimant, said he is aware of the application seeking to vacate the injunction by the court. He, however, said they filed another counter affidavit, asking the court not to allow the defendants to move the application until they purge themselves of the contempt.
He said they filed a form 48 issued at this court, filed form 49 to support the further affidavit. He argued that the defendants have not filed a counter affidavit either to the main affidavit or counter affidavit.
Abiola argued that that the defendants didn’t flout the court order.
Justice Yerima however ruled that she was not going to vacate the order and it subsists.
After the parties had announced names of their arbitrators for arbitration, Justice Yerima adjourned the matter to June 11, 2019.
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