Peter and Paul Okoye, known as P-Square, and their brother Jude Okoye have been ordered to pay a promoter N25 million.
The order was issued by the Supreme Court of Nigeria after it settled a case filed against the musicians in favour of Mr Patrick Arueze, who accused the musicians of breach of contract.
According to Vanguard, Arueze invited them to perform in a show in Benin City in 2011, but the trio did not show up, so he filed a lawsuit against them for breach of contract in the Edo State High Court, presided over by Justice Esther Edigin at the time.
The Okoyes’ application to reverse the judgement, filed on October 3, 2016, was dismissed by the court.
Dissatisfied with the ruling, the artists filed an application for a stay of execution in the Court of Appeal, Benin Division, which was denied, and they later issued a cheque through one of the commercial banks.
However, when the cheque was handed to the bank, the artists asked their attorneys to file a move to block the payment at the Benin Division Court of Appeal, but the motion was dismissed as frivolous.
As the legal proceedings progressed, the Okoyes filed a motion in the Supreme Court attempting to overturn the Court of Appeal’s decision, which dismissed their motion to suspend the payment of the cheque they issued and joined the bank in the action.
The opposing counsel criticised the result because the bank was not a party in the court of appeals.
Justice Uwani Musa Abba-Aji concurred with Mr. Patrick Arueze’s arguments, which were delivered by a team of lawyers led by E. O. Afolabi, SAN, Dr. Samson Osage, Mrs. Nosa Festus Ajayi, and others.
However, the Supreme Court dismissed the applicants’ application and gave them one million naira in costs.
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Speaking on the judgment, Afolabi told Vanguard that “Arueze got judgment against them and they now sent a cheque but when we wanted to cash they cheque, they went to court to stop it, the court refused, they went to the Court of Appeal which also refused their stay of execution, they went to Supreme Court and the lawyer now joined the bank who is not a party to the suit at the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court was not happy and awarded N1m cost against P-Square and their lawyer did not appear.
“With this judgment, the applicants are to pay over Twenty five point eight million naira having accumulated since 2014 with 20 percent interest.”
