Abuja — Supreme Court Monday adjourned to April 26 for the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN) to sort out the confusion on who, between Damien Dodo (SAN) and Ade Okeaya-Ineh (SAN) is to defend the Federal Government against the suit instituted by 16 northern states for the payment of N7 billion as outstanding value of the assets of the defunct Northern States Marketing Board.

Dodo and Okeaya-Ineh were both in court to stand in the AGF.

Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Dahiru Musdapher was forced to adjourn the case to April 26 to allow the two senior counsel to clear the confusion over their appearance.

While addressing the court, Dodo said he was the first to be briefed but that he would try to accommodate Okeaya-Ineh.

Not satisfied with the explanation, Musdapher after consulting with fellow justices decided to adjourn the case to next month with a firm instruction to the lawyers to sort out who between the two of them would represent the Federal Government.

In the case, 16 of the region's 19 states are asking the Supreme Court to compel the Federal Government to pay them N7 billion as outstanding values of the assets of the defunct Northern States Marketing Board (NSMB).

The board was taken over by the Federal Government in 1977 from the then North-western, North-central, Kano, North-eastern and Central-western states.

The states as presently constituted consist of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara.

In the suit before the Supreme Court, the 16 states said in 1977, the then Federal Military Government forcefully took over the assets of NSMB by virtue of Decree No. 29 of 1977.

They said the then Supreme Military Council stated that the Federal Government would pay for the assets of the NSMB and the assets of any other commodity boards.

According to them, before the assets were transferred to the Federal Government, a valuation was carried out which put the total value of all the assets at N42 million.

They said: "Out of the said N42 million, only N1.1 million was paid to the NSMB by the defendant leaving a balance of N40 million." They put the cost of immovable assets and produce taken over at N11 million and N18 million respectively.

Bags, tarpaulin and twine as well as cotton stores complexes allegedly taken over were put at N2 million.

The states said as at July 27, 1983, the Federal Government admitted owing them N10.3 million which when converted using the prevailing exchanging rate (N150.00 to $1) was put at N3 billion.

They argued that the exchange rate at the time the assets were taken over was 50k to one US dollar, whereas the dollar now hovers around N150.00.

They further claimed that government owed them additional N3.9 billion being the current equivalent of alleged undisputed claim of N13 million.

This is said to be the value of some moveable properties and cotton store complexes taken over by the Federal Government.

The states exhibited various documents some of which were correspondence between them and the Federal Government.

Also included are copies of demand notices where they threatened to go to court if the alleged debt was not liquidated. The last one was dated 1st November 2010.

Earlier the Federal Government has filed an objection in which it asked the court to dismiss the claims of the governors.

In the objection filed on behalf of the Attorney General of the Federation by Mr. Ade Okeaya-Ineh (SAN), government said the claim was statute barred by virtue of section 7(1)(e) of the Limitation Act.

Government said: "Where the cause of action upon which the plaintiffs' action is predicted is a letter dated July 27, 1983 and August 13, 1984 as stated in paragraphs 13 and 14 of the plaintiff's statement of claims dated 17th February, 2011."