The Court of Appeal in Lagos has set aside the judgement of the Federal High Court delivered on October 20, 2014 and affirmed billionaire businessman Jimoh Ibrahim as the legal owner of Newswatch. 

Jimoh Ibrahim In a unanimous judgement read by Justice Tijjani Abubakar , the three-man panel of justices said the appeal by lbrahim “ is meritorious and it is hereby allowed. 

“ The judgement was delivered on March 20, this year. 

Other justices on the panel were Justice Garba Abubakar and Justice Abimbola Obaseki – Adejumo. 

The justices further said that the trial judge misdirected himself on the issue of the payment of the sum of 510 million Naira for the shares of the company. 

They further ruled that the issue of payment for the share “ becomes res judicata” since the payment was already litigated upon and Justice Abang has ruled that payment of the said sum was made by Jimoh Ibrahim to the former owners of the company in accordance with clause 6.0 of the share purchase agreement .. 

In the light of the above, they declared that the company was validly acquired. 

The Court further held that all the conditions of the Share Purchase Agreement particularly clause 6.0 were adequately complied with before Jimoh Ibrahim was admitted into the board of the company and subsequently elected as the chairman. 

The Appeal Court also ruled that the trial judge Buba of the Federal High Court erred when he held that the “doctrine of estoppel” is not applicable in the present case. 

Ibrahim won the ownership case at a Federal High Court. 

The matter was re-litigated by the defendants before another Federal High Court Court presided over Buba J who ruled in favour of Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese, Yakubu Mohammed and others.

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