Things that laymen overlook the lawyers take seriously. A Nigerian lawyer, Ogedi Ogu has filed a N10 Million suit before Justice I .O . Harrison Lagos State High Court against the University of Oxford, England for alleged wrongful definitions of the words “mortgagee’’ and “mortgagor” in the Oxford Dictionary, published by Oxford University Press.

Ogu claimed that Oxford Dictionary wrongly defined the word “mortgagee’’ as the borrower in a mortgage transaction; and “mortgagor ’’ as the lender which according to him was contrary to the definition of “ mortgagee” as lender and “mortgagor ” as borrower in many other dictionaries. He equally claimed in the suit that he had relied on the wrong definition to offer legal advice to his professional colleague. It should be noted that the claimant, Mr Ogedi Ogu had sued both the University of Oxford and Oxford University Press as 1st and 2nd defendants respectively.

 

When the matter was slated on 23 June 2020, for ruling on preliminary objection brought by the Oxford University, the counsel to the defendants, Mrs Funke Adekoya ( SAN ), who filed the preliminary objection on the ground that the claimant did not comply with Section 97 of the Sheriff and Civil Process Act in issuing and serving his writ of summons, also contended that Oxford University Press, being only a department under the University of Oxford was a non -juristic entity, and thus could not be sued. She thus urged the court to dismiss the suit for being incompetent.

The judge ruled in favor of the defendants only to the effect that Oxford University Press was not a juristic entity and thus struck out Oxford University Press from the suit but the court ruled that "the writ was validly issued and service was lawful and regular" and thus ordered that the matter should proceed to trial. Ogu is asking for N10 million damages .

So the English people make mistakes too in English language?

Source: Nation

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike has become similar to the story of an unfortunate motherless baby in an enemy’s territory. Even a better metaphor is that of rape — the Federal Government is raping ASUU; ASUU is raping the students; and both the government and ASUU are raping the parents. If the word “rape” turns your stomach, replace it with the phrase “short change”! As a result, the society bleeds, and there is anger everywhere — the teachers are outraged, the parents are livid, and members of the public are apoplectic. I don’t know about the officials.

The time for the blame game should be over. The outcome has been an unmitigated tragedy, such that a nation that is struggling to attain productivity and competitiveness will release its youth to the streets for experimental prostitution and drug trafficking. Either both reach negotiated compromises, or one side gives more than the other. The rape must end. The problem is that it is challenging to commit a government to keep the commitment made by a previous one. Thus, a template arrived at by civil servants in the Ministry of Education, not negotiated by politicians, must be the way to go.

On the part of ASUU, the demands and strikes have become repetitive, to the point of saturation and fatigue. The behaviour of the government is equally repetitive — agree to some conditions in one year and after that renege on them in the succeeding year. Or how else could one explain that ASUU has been making the same demands from every successive government in Nigeria for over two decades? The same ASUU members are aware that the members of the public are not always carried along. Yet, they’ve seen no alternative from the strikes or rethinking the strategy to a different approach that will reduce the burdens on the students and their parents.

The objectives of the strike are not all about personal gains but the overall improvement of the education system. If democracy is working well, it is the representatives of states and local governments who should be doing what ASUU is doing, seeking and approving funding for schools located in their constituencies, championing the cause of good education, promoting higher education, and encouraging first-rate research. No, the politicians are more concerned with egunje, i.e., the spoils of being in power! What is the purpose of a democracy where the politicians cannot fight for the public good?

Both the government and ASUU must reach a set of agreements to terminate the strike. I am not sure that ASUU can ever win the argument that the government and politicians should stop establishing new universities. They won’t listen because, to the typical Nigerian politician, anything that shows some kind of building is evidence of a success story since they cannot see something tangible or anything of substance in the cognitive development of students or the growth of their intellect, or, as they might ask, how is anyone going to appreciate the enhancement of the human brain? Spending money on what is on the ground is not to them an achievement but a consolidation of the success of their predecessors, plus an opportunity to explain where all the disappearing public monies are going. Federal and state governments have changed the names of many universities to honour their godfathers. Maybe we can offer them all the streets at the University of Ibadan to appease them to do what is right. ASUU can fight less on the idea of the Visitation Panels and agree to a certain number per year. The “revitalisation fund” can be distributed over time, as well as the Earned Academic Allowances.

To those unfamiliar with what I am saying, they are all about agreements dating back to 2009, with a further conversation that led to the 2019 Memorandum of Action. Thus, to people opposed to ASUU, they should know that the Union is fighting over agreements that the government has acceded to and signed to uphold. What became added to it was the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), which ASUU had rejected as far back as 2013.