Posted by On Tuesday, a Federal High Court in Abuja dismissed a claim filed by Abba Maina against the Department of State Services (DSS) in connection with Boko Haram activities.
Justice Inyang Ekwo concluded in a judgment that the case demanding Marina’s release was an abuse of judicial process because a similar petition was ongoing before an FCT High Court.
Bringing multiple cases against the same person in different courts at the same time, even if on separate grounds, amounted to an abuse of the legal process, according to Justice Ekwo.
As a result, the judge agreed with the DSS and its director-general (DG) that the fundamental rights lawsuit brought before Justice A.Y. Shafa of the FCT High Court on November 4, 2022, was identical to the current case marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/2090/2022.
“This is clearly a case in which the applicant succumbed to the temptation of filing multiple actions against the same parties in different courts on different grounds.”
“The applicant could have clearly avoided this situation by exercising one of the legal options available to him, exhausting one remedy before pursuing another, assuming that the subsequent action would not be caught by the principle of res judicata.”
“As a result, nothing else is worthy of consideration when a suit is found to be an abuse of the court’s process.”
“It is on this basis that I issue an order dismissing this case for abuse of court process.” “This is the court’s order,” he asserted.