Failure To Accompany A Motion For Joinder With Necessary Supporting Documentation: Fatal Or Pardonable?

FAILURE TO ACCOMPANY A MOTION FOR JOINDER WITH NECESSARY SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION: FATAL OR PARDONABLE?¹

1. Introduction

By way of prefatory remarks, a Motion for Joinder of a party is a conduit that allows necessary parties to participate and ventilate their dissatisfactions in a case.² It is an application that is made to a Court to join a person to a suit, who was not originally a party to the action, either as a Claimant or a Defendant.³ As a procedural vehicle, it drives the notion of Fair Hearing from theory to practice and this explains why courts in Nigeria have elevated the issue of joinder of necessary parties to the lofty status of fundamental right of persons with sufficient interest in a matter, to be heard.⁴