Facts and Background
The Federal High Court awarded N50,000,000.00 (fifty million Naira) damages in favour of the 1st respondent against the 2nd to 4th respondent (The Inspector General of Police (IGP); The Commissioner of Police, FCT; and The Officer in Charge, Intelligence Response Team, Special Anti-robbery Squad of the Nigeria Police Force). The 1st respondent commenced garnishee proceedings against the appellant by a motion ex parte at the trial court. On 10th December 2018, the trial court granted a garnishee order nisi which directed the appellant to show cause why it should not pay the judgement sum awarded against the 2nd to 4th respondent. Upon service on the appellant, it filed an affidavit to show cause, denying liability, and stating that it did not maintain account(s) in the names of the 2nd to 4th respondent and therefore, was unable to comply with the garnishee order nisi to attach and pay the judgement sum. The 1st respondent, on his part, did not file any counter-affidavit to controvert the deposition of the appellant.
In its ruling, the trial court did not decide on whether or not it was necessary for the 1st respondent to seek and obtain the consent of the Attorney-General of the Federation before commencing the garnishee proceedings. The trial court, however, held that the appellant’s affidavit was incompetent because it was filed out of time and was not regularised. The court thereby, disregarded the affidavit, rendering the averments in the 1st respondent’s affidavit in support of the application for garnishee uncontested. The court then proceeded to make the garnishee order absolute against the appellant.
The appellant lodged an appeal to the Court of Appeal, where the appellate court held that the trial court erred in its finding that the appellant’s affidavit to show cause was filed out of time because there is no law specifying the time within which the appellant must show cause in garnishee proceedings. The Court of Appeal, however, invoked the provisions of s. 15 of the Court of Appeal Act to consider the cause shown by the appellant and held that it was not satisfactory. Their Lordships relied on s. 124 of the Evidence Act, 2011, to take judicial notice of the fact that the accounts of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal government of Nigeria were warehoused with the appellant under the Federal Government Treasury Single Account Policy, and held that the 2nd to 4th respondent are MDAs who had accounts with the appellant. Regarding the issue of failure to obtain the consent of the Attorney-General of the Federation, the Court of Appeal held that the judgement debtor was not disputing the judgement debt, the appellant being a garnishee had no business contesting the jurisdiction of the trial court. The appeal was thereby, dismissed; hence the appeal to the Supreme Court.
