SPIRITED to forestall the Lekki Concession Company Limited (LCC) from making good its plan to commence tolling on the Lekki-Ajah expressway,

the Court of Appeal, Lagos, has been tasked to invoke its power by restraining the state government from effecting the proposal.

Also, to be restrained are Lagos State Works Management Board, Lagos Attorney General and Eti-Osa Local Government Council, named in the

suit as respondents, in a legal debacle by legal practitioner, Mr. Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa.

According to Adegboruwa, apart from the government and its agents, banks and privies or otherwise should be stopped from collecting, further

collecting, receiving or further receiving any money, fee, toll, tariff or any such levy from the applicant or any other person for the purpose of

granting access to and use of any portion or part of the Eti-Osa/Lekki-Epe Expressway pending the hearing and final determination of the appeal

of the applicant.

Alternatively, the lawyer requests that the Court of Appeal should make directing the parties herein to maintain the status quo ante bellum, that is

the situation prevailing as of the date of filing the notice of appeal pending the hearing and final determination of the appeal of the applicant.

The appeal was premised upon the grounds that the conduct of the respondents would overreach the eventual determination of the appeal of the

applicant; the legal and constitutional rights of the applicant will be jeopardised and the need to preserve the res of the appeal of the appellant. 

As at press time, the Court of Appeal has not given hearing date.

This is coming to fore as all preparations were said to have been concluded towards the take off this coming Sunday.

Following a ruling by the Federal High Court that the State High Court should try the case, Adegboruwa had approached the Court of Appeal for

adjudication.

In the cause of the case before the lower court, the first defendant, LCC, represented by the law firm of Aluko and Oyebode had filed two

separate processes. First, they filed a counter- affidavit to the substantive originating summons, where it contention that It was lawful and normal

for government to concession public infrastructure and in this case, the House of Assembly of Lagos State passed a law on public private

partnership, which sanctioned this particular transaction.

Secondly, the concessionaire stated that a lot of money had been invested in the project and it was proper to allow the investors reap their

investment and that the construction had added value to the area and the road would be constantly maintained. It stated further that since the

partial construction, traffic congestion had improved. Thus, the time and money previously spent in traffic was far more than the fee to be paid as

toll. The company also stated that there was an alternative route for those who wanted to avoid the toll plazas.

LCC also filed a preliminary objection to the competence of the suit and also challenged the locus standi of the applicant to institute and prosecute

the suit.

According to the firm, the applicant had suffered no special injury over and above other persons. It was contended that the Federal High Court

lacked the jurisdiction to hear the suit since the defendants are all agencies of a state government and the acts being challenged are those of the

state government.

The second to fifth defendants filed a counter affidavit to the originating summons along the same line of LCC. They also filed a preliminary

objection challenging the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court. They also contended that the case of the applicant was statute barred since the act

being challenged was done well over three months before the suit was filed, contrary to the provisions of the public officers protection law.

An earlier efforts by some of the residents of the area to stall the project through a judicial intervention by a Lagos High Court, had met a brick

wall, as the state court struck out the suit.

In the suit, the residents had sued the Lagos State government, Lekki Concession Company (LCC) and others over the collection of toll fee at the

Lekki-Epe Expressway.  But Justice Candide-Johnson had punctured the move.

In the originating summons, Adegboruwa, the applicant sought whether under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, African

Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Lagos State Works Management Board Law, Land Development (Provision for Roads) Law and other

prevailing statutes, Lagos State Government is entitled to abdicate its statutory responsibility of providing road and other infrastructures for its

citizens to private individuals and companies, purely for profit, in such a way that will lead to a contravention of the applicant’s fundamental rights.

He also sought whether there is any law in existence in Lagos State made by the House of Assembly of Lagos State authorising the collection of

tolls, money, tariff or any other fee howsoever described, on any road from the applicant and the people of Lagos State in contravention of the

applicant’s fundamental rights.

Similarly, whether the imposition and collection of road tax, levy, toll fee or tariff from the claimant, road users and other residents and indigenes

of the Lekki/Ibeju/Epe communities to have access to and use of the Lekki-Epe Expressway does not amount to discrimination and therefore a

flagrant violation of the applicant’s fundamental rights as enshrined and guaranteed under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and

therefore null and void.

Consequently, the applicant sought a declaration of the court to the effect that the concession by the Lagos State government of “its statutory

responsibility of providing roads to and other infrastructure to the people and residents of Lagos State, to Lekki Concession Company Limited,

purely for profit, is illegal, unconstitutional null and void and violating of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

In a related development, a member of committee put in place by Governor Raji Fashola, representing Eti-Osa Heritage Group, the group that

have been at the vanguard of opposition to the tolling of the expressway, Mr. Adewale Sanni, said some of the recommendations by the committee

are not been fulfill before the announcement of the toll collection date.

According to Adewale, who is the secretary of the group said one of the recommendations was that Toll Plaza 2, christened “Conservation Plaza,”

should be jettisoned, that two toll plazas between a 10 kilometre distance is nothing short of oppression.

“If for any reason the second toll plaza should be constructed, then, all the recommendations of the committee were defeated”, said Adewale,

adding that abinitio, the group has never envisaged the kind of burden the reconstruction of the road is about to put upon the residents.