Court Awards N26.4m Damages in Gombe Granite Sale Dispute
By Abubakar Rabilu Gombe
A Gombe State High Court has ordered Jipa Jan Nigeria Limited and one of its directors, Abdullahi Jalo, to pay N26.4 million in damages to Heritage Homes Limited over a failed transaction involving the sale of granite stones and ballast materials.
Justice Abdulsalam Muhammad of High Court No. 8 delivered the judgment after finding that the defendants breached a contractual agreement and misled the claimant company during the transaction.
Court documents revealed that the dispute arose from a business deal initiated in September 2016 when Jalo visited the Abuja office of Heritage Homes Limited and met with its Managing Director, Alhaji Abubakar Bello.
According to the claimant, Jalo introduced himself as a director of Jipa Jan Nigeria Limited and offered to sell granite stones and ballast materials allegedly located at the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) yard in Gombe.
He reportedly claimed that the materials had been legally acquired through a public auction conducted by the corporation and presented documents purportedly showing that N12 million had been paid for their purchase.
Relying on the representations made by the defendants, Heritage Homes Limited paid the agreed sum through cash and cheque transactions.
However, the company later discovered that the granite stones and ballast materials had already been sold and removed before the agreement was executed.
The claimant told the court that repeated efforts to recover its money and resolve the matter amicably proved unsuccessful, prompting it to seek legal redress.
During the hearing, counsel to the claimant, Peter Aki, called two witnesses and tendered documentary evidence before the court.
The defence counsel, Sikiru Mustapha, cross-examined the witnesses and presented one witness on behalf of the defendants.
In his judgment, Justice Muhammad described the defendants’ conduct as a deliberate and systematic breach of the agreement signed on December 2, 2016.
The judge held that evidence before the court showed that the defendants sold the same materials to different buyers and had commenced removing some of the materials years before entering into the transaction with the claimant.
Consequently, the court ordered Jipa Jan Nigeria Limited and Abdullahi Jalo to jointly and severally pay Heritage Homes Limited N26.4 million as damages and compensation for losses suffered in the failed transaction.
