By Stella Okocha
Harboursandport.com: Lagos - May 14, 2025: The Supreme Court has agreed with the submission renowned maritime lawyer, Emeka Akabogu and has effected a tectonic reset of Nigeria's Admiralty Jurisdiction practice and procedure, while delivering judgement on practice-redefining magnitude.
Akabogu, a Commercial lawyer with specialty in maritime, energy and international Trade; stated that while the Supreme Court was delivering the judgement in the case of GeePee Industries Nigeria Limited, MV Kota Manis and 4 other suits, with case file NO: SC/804/2018; the apex Court unequivocally dismantled the almost two decades long encroachment of the Sheriffs and Civil processes Act into the Admiralty jurisdiction and reasserted the status of the jurisdiction as 'sui generis'.
He added that prior to this development, the Court of Appeal had wrongly entrenched three principles of the acts which he pointed out as follow;
* That naming the owner of a ship, changed the nature of the claim from
'in rem' to 'in personam'.
* That the response time of the writ in Admiralty matters should be 30 days as required under the Sheriff's and Civil Processes Act and not 14 days as required under the Admiralty Jurisdiction procedure rules.
* That leave must be obtained for a concurrent writ to be issued on a foreign owner before the Court can assume jurisdiction to arrest defendant vessel within the Nigeria waters.
Mr Akabogu highlighted that it was a personal fulfilling moment for him, having seen through a strenuous 13-year litigation across all three tiers of the Nigerian Court system, on the sore point that led to the cheery judgement.
He added that while these arguments were clearly against the letter and sprit of the key procedure and substantive Admiralty rules, the Court of Appeal had over the years been swayed to give pre-eminence to the Sheriff's and Civil Processes Act in the determination of service-related questions on the Admiralty jurisdiction.
He concluded that the judgement is significant for commercial interests in the Nigerian shipping and energy space, as it ensures security and speed of claims in which arrest of vessels is implicated.
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