The Supreme Court of Nigeria has delivered a landmark judgment in a long-standing breach of contract case, ordering popular music duo P-Square (Peter and Paul Okoye) and their brother Jude Okoye to pay promoter Patrick Arueze approximately N25 million in damages.
The case, which dates back to 2011, arose when Arueze invited P-Square to perform at a show in Benin City, but the group failed to appear.
Arueze subsequently filed a lawsuit against the Okoyes in the Edo State High Court, presided over by Justice Esther Edigin, alleging breach of contract.
The Okoyes attempted to reverse the judgment through a motion dated October 3, 2016, but the court dismissed their appeal.
Undeterred, they filed a motion for stay of execution at the Court of Appeal, Benin Division, which was also dismissed.
The musicians later issued a cheque through a commercial bank to settle the matter, but when Arueze presented the cheque to the bank, the Okoyes instructed their lawyers to file another motion at the Court of Appeal to stop the payment.
The court dismissed this motion as frivolous, and the Okoye's subsequently filed a motion at the Supreme Court, seeking to appeal against the ruling of the Court of Appeal.
However, the Supreme Court struck out their application and awarded an additional one million naira in costs against them.
In a post-judgment interview, Arueze's lead counsel, E. O. Afolabi, SAN, hailed the judgment as a victory for justice, stating that the Okoyes' repeated attempts to delay and frustrate the legal process were unsuccessful. "Arueze obtained judgment against them, and they issued a cheque to settle the matter, but when we attempted to cash the cheque, they went to court to stop it.
The court refused, they went to the Court of Appeal, which also refused their stay of execution.
They went to the Supreme Court, and the lawyer joined the bank, which was not a party to the suit at the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court was not happy and awarded N1 million cost against P-Square. Their lawyer did not appear," Afolabi stated.
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