By Taiye Agbaje
The Managing Director of Davenchris Ventures LTD, Mr Christian Igbo, on Wednesday, asked the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to obey a court judgment and pay N29 million balance of the contract sum legitimately awarded and executed by him.

Igbo, who made the call while addressing newsmen in Abuja, stated that he duly bidded for and won some projects offered to him by NSCDC, which he executed in 2022 and part-payment was made to him at the end of the year.

He alleged that his refusal to play along with some officers in the Finance and Procurement Departments of the corps to share government’s money and leave the project half done, had caused the balance of his payment to be withheld, which necessitated a suit he instituted.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Justice Edward Okpe of a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyanya in Abuja, had ordered the NSCDC to pay Igbo over N29 million balance of the contract sum legitimately awarded and executed by him.

The judgment followed an originating motion on notice marked: CV/2115/2023 and filed by his lawyer, Pascal Obioha against the security agency and others.
In the suit, Igbo sued the NSCDC, its Commandant-General (C-G), ACG Fabian Ejezie (Finance) and Mpamugo Ifeanyi Bartholomew as 1st to 4th defendants respectively.

Also joined in the suit include Victor Olarenwaju, Pastor Kukuyi (Accountant General Staff in Charge of CPO) and Chukwuemeka Okeke as 5th to 7th defendants.

Igbo alleged that about nine NSCDC staff had sent their accounts details to him for some unwarranted and unlawful demand on the money meant for the project he got, but he refused to play along.

He said the officers insisted on their unlawful and unwarranted demands from him and ganged up to deprive and frustrate him from getting the balance of the contract sum which he had excellently and duly executed.

“These officers with their threat messages and bank account details available with me, claimed they were directed by their management to demand for a return of some percentages of the contract fund I was paid,” he said.

NAN reports that Justice Okpe had agreed with all the averments of Igbo which, the judge said, the security agency did not controvert.

He, therefore, called on the management of the corps to obey the court judgment and pay the remaining amount.
The aggrieved contractor, who is also the managing director of IB-Technicals Ltd. and Chrisreubben Enterprises, also alleged that he rejected some job slots offered to him in the recruitment exercise of the corps to make him withdraw the court case.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
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edited by Sadiya Hamza

By Taiye Agbaje

An Igbo group, Odinala Cultural Heritage Foundation (OCHIE Igbo) has called on the Federal Government to come clean on the issue of insecurity ravaging social and commercial activities in southeast.
The group, in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Caleb Ekene Onwe, tasked President Bola Tinubu to make a categorical statement on the matter.
It regretted that governors of southeast zone had allowed political differences and selfish primitive acquisition to divert their attention from the crucial need for collective action against the menace of insecurity.

OCHIE Igbo recalled that a few years ago, the southeast was the quintessential bride and cynosure of the entire country, noting that the zone played host to many Nigerians in search of leisure and business due to the prevailing peace.
“However, since 2019, our zone has been locked in a vortex of intractable and unexplainable security issues that seem to have defied solution.
“Painfully, the southeast governors have capitalised on the ugly situation to increase their security votes, without any commensurate improvement in security.

“We make bold to say that the factors militating against security of life and property in the southeast are not entirely unknown.

“Rather, what is unknown is why the governors of the zone have elected to profit from the malaise, whilst the Federal Government on its part sees it as an opportunity to show force or demonstrate military might.

“The resultant effect and impact of the military operations in the south-east leaves much to be desired”, the group stated,” it said.

The group, therefore, appealed to President Tinubu to unconditionally release Nnamdi Kanu in order to douse the l being generated by his incarceration.
It also urged the federal government to send strong caution to Simon Ekpa, an acclaimed member of the proscribed IPOB, through the Embassy of Finland in Nigeria.
The group assured Ndigbo of its continued pursuit for the preservation of peace and social harmony in the region.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
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edited by Sadiya Hamza

By Taiye Agbaje

A Nigerian, Mr Chianugo Peter, has sought a 150 million dollars compensation from Google and GoDaddy.com over allegations bordering on the shutdown of his YouTube Audio domain name after eight years of promotional and marketing works.
Peter, through his lawyer, Emmanuel Ekpenyong of Fred-Young & Evans LP, filed the suit before Justice Obiora Egwuatu of a Federal High Court, Abuja.
The plaintiff, in the application marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/238/2023, sued GoDaddy.Com LLC and Google LLC as 1st and 2nd defendants.
In the suit filed April 14, sought the court declaration that he registered the YouTube Audio business name, commenced trademark registration on the logo of the business name and secured the YouTubeAudio.com domain name from the GoDaddy in good faith to carry out genuine business to host his application thereon to attract users.
He also sought a declaration that since GoDaddy and Google encouraged him to make use of the YouTubeAudio.com domain name for the past eight years, “they are estopped from claiming that the domain name infringes any of their trademarks or deny the plaintiff the use of the YouTubeAudio.com domain name.
“A declaration of this Honourable Court that the plaintiff is entitled to compensation from the defendants for the loss of the YouTubeAudio.com brand and goodwill which has accrued on the brand and domain name for 8 years of promotional and marketing works from 2nd July, 2015 to 7th December, 2022.
Peter, therefore, sought an order directing the defendants to pay him the sum of $50 million for promotional and marketing works on the YouTube Audio business name and YouTube Audio.com domain name for eight years from July 2, 2015 to Dec. 7, 2022.
“An order of this Honourable Court directing the defendants to pay the sum of US $ 100, 000, 000 (One Hundred Million United States Dollars) to the plaintiff for loss of anticipated profits associated with the brand equity and goodwill of YouTube Audio and YouTube Audio.com domain name.
“An order of this Honourable Court directing the defendants to pay the Plaintiff the sum of N50, 000, 000 (Fifty Million naira) to enable the plaintiff to carry out fresh registrations of its new name and secure an alternative domain name to host its application to attract users.
“An order of this Honourable Court directing the defendants to pay the sum of N10, 00, 000 (Ten Million naira) paid to the plaintiff’s counsel for prosecution of this suit.”
In the statement of claim, Peter said he was the owner of the YouTube Audio, also known as YTAudio which could be accessed through platforms such as Google Play Store and Apple Store in Nigeria.
According to him, YouTube Audio is a creative mobile application that encourages users to be more creative and enjoy utilising audio as a primary source of entertainment, information, and expression.
He said sometime in 2015, he acquired YoutubeAudio.com and YoutubeAudio.ca. domain names from GoDaddy without any caveat that it infringed the YouTube trademark or any other products of Google.
He further averred that in that year when he applied to GoDaddy to obtain the YouTubeAudio.com and YoutubeAudio.ca domain names, GoDaddycarried out an availability check and confirmed that the names were available for him.
Peter said GoDaddy did not inform him that neither YouTubeAudio.com nor YoutubeAudio.ca domain name was similar to YouTube or any trademark of Google.
“It was upon this premise that the plaintiff consistently paid for the domain name and carried out promotional and marketing works on the domain name,” he said.
Besides, he said from 2015 to April 2022 when he carried out extensive promotional and marketing works on the domain name, Google did not lay claim to the domain name or insist that it was similar to the YouTube trademark.
The plaintiff said he even paid Google to host the YouTube Audio.com application on the Google Play Store in 2021 without any query that the domain was similar to the YouTube trademark or any of its other trademarks.
Peter said the YouTube Audio was duly registered on Feb. 22, 2016 as a business name with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) under the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as BN 2395035 and continuously filed tax returns with the Federal Inland Revenue Service in Nigeria (FIRS).
He said the domain was fully established and had a management team, business address, foreign and local bank accounts with several banks, including master card and cheque books.
He said it was after eight years of serious promotional and marketing works on the YouTubeAudio.comdomain name to make it attractive to users and launch its application thereon that the defendants suddenly claimed that the domain name was similar to the YouTube trademark.
Peter, who stressed that GoDaddy registered the YouTube audio.com domain name and gave him the assurance that he had acquired a right over the name.
He insisted that Google also gave him the assurance that he had acquired a right over the name when it took no action throughout the eight years period when he carried out promotional works on the name and even gave approval for the YouTube Audio application to be listed on Google Play Store in 2021.
He said it was based on the assurances of the defendants that he relied upon and incurred tremendous cost and expenses in registering and branding the YouTube Audio.com business and domain name and carried out wide promotional works on the name for eight years.
According to him, on 29th April, 2022, the 2nd defendant (Google), through its Solicitor, Aluko & Oyebode contacted the plaintiff to express its concerns about YouTube Audio and its similarities with YouTube.
He said Google’s lawyer called for amicably settlement of the issue and advised him to change its business name, social media pages, domain names and trading style to YTAudio.
He said through his lawyer, he agreed to an amicable settlement of the issue only if Google was willing to compensate him.
He said instead of taking steps to compensate him, GoDaddy shut down his domain on a claim that it infringed the YouTube trademark after an arbitration proceedings against him before the Forum under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, adopted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
According to him, on the basis of the forum’s decision, the 1st defendant shut down the plaintiff’s YouTubeAudio.com domain name and transferred it to the 2nd defendant on 7th December, 2022.
Peter argued that Google did not have a monopoly of the “YouTube” acronym and that was why there were other independent companies and domain names with the “YouTube” acronym such as “YouTube Downloader”, “YouTube Promoter”, “ssyoutube.com”, “YouTube to MP4 Converter” amongst others.
He said that the defendants acted against the assurances they gave him that he acquired a right over the YouTube Audio.com domain name when they commenced arbitration against him and took over the name without any compensation.
When the matter came up for report of service of originating processes on the defendants, only the plaintiff lawyer, Ekpenyong, and counsel to Google, Mark Mordi, SAN, were in court.
Justice Egwuatu adjourned the matter until Oct 11 for mention.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

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edited by Sadiya Hamza

By Judith Ezeudogu

Mr Raphael Chima, a businessman, on Tuesday, dragged his wife, Joy, before a Customary Court in Jikwoyi because she frequently beats him.

He made the allegation in a divorce petition he filed against her before the court.

“My wife physically abuses and harasses me. She slaps me at the slightest chance. She abuses me mentally,” he said.

He also told the court that his wife was disrespectful to his parents.

The petitioner told the court that his wife has long abandoned their child to him, that he has been the only one caring for the child without the help of his wife.

He prayed the court to grant him the custody of the only child of the marriage and dissolve the marriage between him and his wife.

The respondent, Joy denied the allegations.

The presiding judge, Dada Oluwaseyi, advised the couple to explore reconciliation.

Oluwaseyi adjourned the matter until July 27, for report of settlement or hearing. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

Edited by Sadiya Hamza

By Taiye Agbaje
A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory sitting in Bwari has abruptly closed a case filed by the Nigerian Police against the National Chairman, All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Edozie Njoku, and another over alleged conspiracy to alter a judgment of the Supreme Court delivered by retired Justice Mary Peter Odili.
Justice Mohammed Madugu, who gave the order due to failure of police prosector, Rinasomte Ezekiel, to produce other witnesses in court, directed Njoku and Chukwuemeka Nwoga, the defendants in the charge, to open their case.
Justice Madugu observed that the defendants were charged to court on Nov. 22, 2022 by the police.
He said Ezekiel had made the court to see the urgency of the matter, and assured that he would close his case within two weeks.
The judge, however, expressed dismay that since Nov. 22, 2022, the police lawyer had only called two witnesses, with several adjournments.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that on July 4, Justice Madugu had threatened to close the case of the prosecution if he failed to produce his remaining witnesses in court on the next adjourned date.
At a resumed trial, the judge, based on the oral application by the police lawyer for a 5-minute stand down, magnanimously stood the matter down for an hour to enable the prosecution counsel to call his witnesses.
However, upon resumption of sitting, Ezekiel informed the judge that his remaining witnesses said they would not appear before the court.
He said the witnesses asked him to inform the court of their pending application before the Chief Judge of the FCT High Court for the matter to be transferred to another court.
When asked by the judge about his opinion on the development, Ezekiel said “everybody has freedom of expression” and that he aligned himself with the application of the witnesses.
Ezekiel sought an adjournment pending the time the CJ would take action on their application.
Reacting, the defence counsel, Panam Ntui, opposed the application for an adjournment.
He said the court had indulged the prosecution for so long a time, stressing that “even some of their excuses are untenable and lack any iota of probative value.
“This latest antic is aimed at delaying proceedings, and shouldn’t be allowed.
“It is on record that from November 2022, when the defendants were arraigned, the prosecution said in two weeks, he would be closing his case.”
Ntui argued that criminal case is of public interest and not for self aggrandizement of the prosecution counsel.
“The prosecution counsel had at four different occasions pleaded for an adjournment including this stand down today.
“Even when the prosecution asked for five minutes, the court granted over an hour stand down for the prosecution to call his remaining witnesses.
“This court still has an inherent jurisdiction to go on with this matter except at a time, transfer to another court is endorsed by the CJ,” he said.
The lawyer urged the court to close the case of the prosecution, having failed to call his witnesses.
“We are ready to open our defence,” he prayed the court.
Justice Madugu, who ordered that the police case be closed for lack of diligent prosecution, directed the defence to open their case.
Meanwhile, Ntui called Njoku, as his first defence witness to give evidence-in-chief.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

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edited by Sadiya Hamza