Hurdles in Joinder: Case of Professor Enu, C.I.I. and Ndokwa West L.G.C., Delta State Nigeria

Abstract

Joinder of parties in litigation is one recurrent decimal in the administration of civil justice in Nigeria. It is because of its complexity that the theory of representative action developed so that parties who have similar interests in a subject matter in litigation can allow one of their own to institute an action in their behalf usually called class action. Representative actions are popular in family, associational and organizational settings. This study is a critical conversation around the circumstances that gave rise to a joinder application in NWACC/37/2019 Chief Mrs. Rita Enu v. Melody Ogwezzy and Community Integrity Initiative where the defendants in the suit tried to join Professor Emmanuel Ifeanyichukwu Enu, the spouse of the plaintiff and Ndokwa West Local Government Council in an action concerning the naming and allocation of Street numbers in Bishop Titus Enu Close, Kwale Delta State. The study which adopts doctrinal method surveyed the claims and counter-claims in the suit and the evidence in the case and interrogated the judicial authorities in the area of joinder of parties in civil litigation. It critically raises the primary facts which the plaintiff relied upon in suing the defendants and presented the evidence elicited from cross examination of the plaintiff that yielded the factual circumstances that the defendants capitalized upon to raise a Motion on Notice for joinder. Although the joinder was swiftly dismissed by the trial court, an appeal to the High Court of Justice, Kwale was subsequently transferred to the Delta State Customary Court of Appeal, Cabal Point, Asaba where the appeal succeeded in parts: while the Local Government Council was ordered to be joined, the joinder of Professor Enu was refused. The study finds that there are clearly laid down guiding principles that a court follows in the determination of every application touching on joinder the Locus classicus of which is laid down in Green v. Green. It was further found that although the grant or refusal of an application for joinder is an exercise within the discretion of the court, which ought to be exercised judicially and judiciously and the appellate courts do not form the habit of interfering often with the exercise of a lower court’s discretion, in this case under review, the court of appeal intervened essentially because the issue of fair hearing was invoked as the Delta State Customary Court of Appeal, Asaba determined that the defendants had sufficiently demonstrated an indictment of the Local Government Council in the performance of its constitutional responsibility and thus ordered that it should be joined to be confronted with the case and complaints of the defendants.