Royal family obtains order forcing Lagos church to appear in court over disputed land

ARINZE NWAFOR, Lagos

The Asade Royal Family have obtained an order from a Lagos State High Court in Ikeja to compel a Lagos Church, Victorious Army Ministries International to appear and answer a land dispute case.

Justice Raliat Adebiyi ordered the appearance of the incorporated trustees of the church after a motion ex parte was brought under Order 9, Rule 5 of the High Court Civil Procedure Rules 2019 by members of the royal family, Prince Oyewole Asade and Prince Olabisi Asade.

The Asade Royal Family of Ogba sought leave of court to serve a writ of summon and all other originating processes on the church by posting the notice at their premises after the church’s management failed to accept service.

The claimant’s writ of summon sought a declaration of themselves as the owners of all the pieces or parcels of land located and situated at Plot 22, Acme Road, Agidingbi, Ikeja, Lagos State. 

The declaration sought by the claimant is a pronouncement of the Asade royal family as entitled to the statutory Right of Occupancy for all the pieces or parcels of land under contention.

The claimants sought an order of Perpetual Injunction to restrain the church, their servants, agents, privies, assigns, representatives and whosoever derived title from them from trespassing or further trespassing on the disputed land.

The Asade royal family also sought an order to possess the disputed land.

In their statement of claims, the claimants relied on a Supreme Court decision; as seen in suit No SC 129/1984 wherein Justice Andrews Obaseki affirmed that Agidingbi village and all the farmlands surrounding it lie within Asade’s Ogba land.

The claimants maintained they had no record of any sale, assignment, transfer, or lease of the disputed land from their record to the Church and their ignorance of how the church, the Incorporated Trustees of Victorious Army Ministries International, got into their land.

According to the Asade royal family’s lawyer, Otunba Remi Adeoye the church failed to file their defence to the claim within the time allowed by the court’s rules despite the claimant’s service of the originating processes.