Counsel says VDM not AG, lacks Locus standi to query NAFDAC over Healing water
The FCT High Court presided over by Justice Nwosu Iheme in a case filed in July 2024, by Prophet Jeremiah Omoto Fufeyin against Mr. Martins Vincent Otse otherwise known as VeryDarkMan has been adjourned indefinitely. The Vacation Court had earlier granted an injunctive order restraining Mr. Martins Vincent Otse otherwise known as VeryDarkMan to maintain status quo on the said matter. After August adjournment, the Court was set for definite hearing of all applications on September 6, 2024.
Samuel Ihensekhien Jnr Esq. in his statement debunked the claims that he abandoned the case in court without writing to the court. While responding to the Press, he said: “In respect of this matter, quite incidentally for personal reasons I could not make it to court promptly at that 9’O'clock. I was on transit on air for some medical reasons and could not be able to attend the proceedings promptly as I ought to because of the sensitive nature of the matter. It’s very important as I wrote to the Court to bring it to the light of the Court on the circumstances for a stand down but the court on its wisdom actually choose on the application of the counsel to Martin Otse otherwise known as VeryDarkMan.
"On the application, he sought for a cost of 200,000 naira giving the court a very funny and very flimsy excuse with all due respect to him. The court rejected that award of cost because I’ve been upright and my character from the beginning of this matter has shown a lot of prudence and prompt prosecution so the court declined and we should also understand that this is the matter that was originally assigned and set for the FCT High Court Vacation Court for the period of August to September. We are already in September, the Vacation Court, I think they have less than six or five days and we have a lot of sundry applications on our part and on the part of the Defendant, Martin Otse otherwise known as VeryDarkMan”.
Counsel to the Plaintiff however said, “there is an interesting twist to this matter. The last date I was served some court processes with, I have responded to in all the right channel. We discovered a lot of discrepancies in the documents displayed, alleged, and relied upon by the defendant in this matter. We are going to be having a trial inside a trial in the sense is the purported receipt which I will make available to the Press that Mr. Martin Otse alleged to have used to buy the said spiritual items. We have discovered that those receipt more particularly number 1527 and the other one in the numbers, we have discovered that the receipt in question actually do not exist in any ramification. Is actually from wherever he gets it from, the implication is that receipt is altered and it is forged. I’ve made the receipt available for the Press.
"The Police have done an intensive investigation on the matter, the forensic report I believe by now should be out and that we have brought before this court, we have filed it as a process and display the particular characters of that receipt to show that receipt is not just altered, it is forged. It is forged by the defendant in order to clothe him with the locos to sue in this matter and two, he also lack the jurisdiction to enforce any provision of the NAFDAC Act on anybody or whosever. He is not the Attorney General of the Federation. He has no voice, he has no competence within the meaning of the NAFDAC Act. So anything he is actually doing is not right and it is condemnable”.
The defendant’s lead Counsel, Ademola Oyedokun Esq. while addressing the press immediately after the Vacation Court adjourned indefinitely said “In the last sitting of the court, the position is that all the pending applications which include their motion for interlocutory injunction and our own motion to stop them from selling unlicensed, unregistered, and unapproved products is slated for today for hearing but unfortunately we are in court today and the counsel to the church, counsel to Prophet Jeremiah Omoto Fufeyin fail to show up and he did not send a letter to the court, only the representative of the church, one Mr Christsantus Umealakei informed the Court that Counsel is out of town. One will think that the case of this magnitude that everybody takes serious including the parties and lead counsel thereto”.
Ademola Esq. wondered why a lawyer will not show up. In his statement “a big firm of path legal of Mr. Samuel Ihensekhien who has many Counsels in his office, no representative came from that law office and we consider that a game of hide-and-seek has started and we will not condone that. That is why we asked the Court to grant us a cost of 200,000 naira but in the opinion of the Court, the Court thought that this is the first time they are seeking an adjournment and the Court did not award the cost of 200,000 naira. And as we all know that this Court is a Vacation Court and vacation ends next week so the Presiding Judge has now returned the case file to the Chief Judge for reassignment so the Honorable Chief Judge of FCT will reassign the case file to another Justice of this FCT High Court for hearing of all the pending applications and substantive trial. So as at today, there is no definite date for coming back but the case has gone back to Chief Judge who will now give it to a regular Court that will hear the case from beginning to the end so we will get another date from the Judge that will be assigned”.
