N10b suit: Court orders Town planner to inspect Standard Chartered Bank building

Olaide Matthew

A Lagos State High Court, presided over by Justice Doris Okuwobi, has ordered the President of Nigerian Institute of Town Planners to prepare a comprehensive report and measurement of Standard Chartered Bank’s 14 flour commercial building situated at 142 Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, of the state.

The judge made the order after listening to claimant’s counsel in the suit filed by an elder statesman, Dr Tunji Braithwaite in a N10 billion suit against the Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria limited for constructing a 15-storey building and a multilevel car park opposite his residence with an alleged ‘illegal permit.

At the resume hearing of the matter, the claimant counsel led by Dr. Braithwaite informed the court of an application dated October 6, 2015 praying for an order of court to direct the president of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners to enter the defendant’s commercial building to undertake physical measurement of the setback and airspace of the building.

He said, “An order of court directing the President of Nigerian Institute of Town Planners, to prepare a comprehensive report of his findings and measurements, which shall be produce to the court as part of the evidence on record of this trial.”

And also an order that “the cost and fees to the President of Nigerian Institute of Town Planners for the execution and implementation of the orders herein be cost in the cause.”

Defendant counsel, Mr Adiniyi Adegbonmire (SAN) did not oppose the application but prayed the court to make consequential order that both parties be at liberty to call whoever made the measurement to be available for cross examination, once the parties agree on the date of the measurement.

However, the judge subsequently adjourned further hearing till November, 24, 2015.

It would be recalled that, at the last proceeding expert witness for the Standard Chartered Bank, Mr. Olugbenga Akinmoladun told a court that he made an error in the date he fixed in his expert report regarding when the bank obtained its development permit.

The witness under cross-examination by the claimant, Dr. Tunji Braithwaite, however said it was typographical error, insisting that it was not a deliberate falsehood intended to mislead the court.

Akinmoladun had claimed in his report that he physically measured the distance between the construction site and the claimant’s residence, adding that it is ‘about the size of a standard plot of land’.

“The distance between the project and the claimant house is the size of a standard plot of land. I measured it. Our measurement is not faulty”, he stated.

Braithwaite had informed the court that he would be pray for physical inspection and measurement by a neutral body.