The well-known music duo Psquare, together with their sibling Jude Okoye, have been decided against by the Nigerian Supreme Court in their protracted legal dispute with promoter Mr. Patrick Arueze.
After a breach of contract, the three parties were ordered by the supreme court to pay N25 million to Arueze.
The case started when Patrick Arueze asked Psquare to play at an event in Benin City in 2011.
Arueze sued the musical duo in the Edo State High Court for breach of contract after the duo disregarded their end of the bargain.
The Okoye family made an effort to challenge the judgement, but their attempts were unsuccessful. They filed a motion of appeal and a motion to stop the execution.
After their appeals were denied by the Court of Appeal, Benin Division, they decided to pay the bill with a cheque drawn on a commercial bank.
The musicians attempted to stop the payment, though, by filing a second motion at the Court of Appeal, which was also denied, prolonging the legal drama.
Unfazed, they joined the bank in their attempt to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
In the case, Justice Uwani Musa Abba-Aji took the side of Arueze, who was backed by a group of solicitors that included Mrs. Nosa Festus Ajayi, Dr. Samson Osage, and E. O. Afolabi, SAN.
In the end, the Supreme Court rejected the applicants’ application and granted one million naira as application fees.
In response to the ruling, Afolabi stated:
“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.”
