Judgment
BATURE ISAH GAFAI, J.C.A.(Delivering the Leading Judgment): This is an appeal against the judgment of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory Abuja delivered on the 13th of September, 2019 in Suit No. FCT/HC/CV/1854/2019 in which an order for recovery of the sum of N285,053,354 from the Appellants was entered by the Court in favour of the Respondent.
As gleaned from the Record of Appeal, the Respondent had approached the lower Court by a suit under the Undefended List disclosing altogether but stated in brief here that sometime in December 2016 he placed the sum of N200,600,000.00 (Two Hundred Million, Six Hundred Thousand Naira) in a fixed deposit account with the 1st Appellant a microfinance bank for a period of 180 days at an agreed interest rate of 20% which however the 1st Appellant reneged entirely by refusing to pay the Respondent both the deposit and interest sum from the maturity date, despite several failed assurances by the 1st Appellant till date.
The Appellants responded to the suit by causing to be filed a Notice of Conditional Appearance, a Notice of Preliminary Objection and a Notice of Intention to Defend the suit.
In its judgment, the lower Court considered the arguments of the parties on the Appellants’ Preliminary Objection which was premised on the ground that the 2nd to 8th Appellants being Directors of the 1st Appellant cannot in law be personally liable for the 1st Appellant’s contract with the Respondent which therefore renders the suit as one with no cognizable cause of action against them, the effect of which is that the lower Court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the suit against them. The lower Court found no merit in the Preliminary Objection and thus discountenanced same.
Proceeding into main suit, it further found the Appellants’ facts in the affidavit in support of their Notice of Intention to Defend the suit as, in its words, “…incoherent, evasive, scandalous and thoroughly unconscionable…”.
In consequence, the lower Court discountenanced the Appellants’ Notice of Intention to Defend the suit, considered the Respondent’s suit on its merit and entered judgment in part only against the Appellants in the sum of N285,053,345.00 (Two Hundred and Eighty-Five Million, Fifty-Three Thousand, Three Hundred and Forty-Five Naira) and a consequential order on the Respondent to prepare to prove his claim for interest for the period covering February 2018 to April 30, 2019 which the Respondent claimed to have accrued in the sum of N66,572,447.00 (Sixty Six Million, Five Hundred and Seventy-Two Thousand, Four Hundred and Forty-Seven Naira).
