The High Court of Benue State has dismissed a personal property claim by the Ochenjele family against retired Supreme Court Justice James Ogenyi Ogebe with respect to an American-founded mission school in Otukpo.

The litigation arose several years after the death of the school administrator when his children made an ill-fated claim of the Livingstone Academy as their family property.

However, in a judgment delivered on March 31, 2026, the court observed that:

1. On the issue raised by the Defendants as to the locus standi of 4th Plaintiff, it was held that the 4th Defendant is not the same as Living Stone Academy but merely a company which renders educational services to Livingstone Academy as per the Plaintiffs' Amended Statement of Claims and as such has no right whatsoever to maintain the present action or claim the reliefs. Accordingly, the name of the 4th plaintiff is struck out.

2. The court further held that the 4th Plaintiff is a company which is separate and distinct from the subscribers to its memo. The court noted that the late Samuel Ochenjele who the 1st - 3rd plaintiff claim to derive their beneficial interest from was not shown anywhere in the pleadings of the plaintiffs to be a Shareholder of the 4th Plaintiff. And even if he is, a company under our laws is not an agent of its subscribers but a legal person of its own, with its own perpetual Succession.

3. The court also held that, the 1st - 3rd Plaintiff claim to derive their interest in the 4th defendant from the Late Samuel Ochenjele who died in 2020; the plaintiffs also claim that during the life time of the Deceased, he founded and ran the 4th Plaintiff which was only incorporated in 2022. Again, Exhibit P1 - P13 tendered by the plaintiffs carries the name Livingstone Academy which is different from the 4th Plaintiff – Livingstone Academy Oglewu Ltd. It is not the duty of the court to pick and choose between conflicting evidence and as such, the law is that where evidence is at variance with pleadings, both goes to no issue. Hence the plaintiff claim in this regard must fail.

4. On the invasion of Livingstone Academy on the 9/9/2024, the court held that the failure of the Plaintiff to feed the 2nd defendant or any eye witness of the attack was fatal; accordingly, the law is that when a fact is pleaded without proof, it can also be debunked without proof. The plaintiffs were held to have proven this, albeit unsatisfactorily.

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