The facts averred in Plaintiffs statement of claim are that all the parties to this litigation are members of the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria, and the Association as a body corporate. The Plaintiffs are financial members of the Association. The 1st and 2nd Defendants are the President and Vice President of the Association, which is the 8th Defendant. The tenure of office of the President and Vice President appointed on the 27th June 1996 for a two-year term expires on the 26th June, 1998. The 3rd Defendant was appointed Treasurer on the 27th June, 1996. There is a Council of the 8th Defendant. The 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Defendants are some of the members of the Council, and have been sued for and on behalf of the entire Council Plaintiffs have complained that the Council whose tenure expires on the 20th Jan, 1997 has failed or refused to hold an annual general meeting of the 8th Defendant Association, and accordingly denied members of the 8th Defendant. Association, the opportunity to nominate fresh people to constitute a new Council. The tenure of members of the present Council was to expire on the 19th January, 1997.

The contention of Plaintiffs is that the tenure of 1st-3rd Defendant expired on June 26, 1998 and that they had accordingly ceased to be officers of the 8th Defendant Association.

Long after the expiration of the tenure of office of the 1st 3rd Defendants, they organised a Workshop the 22nd July, 1998. At the instance of the 1st –3rd Defendants, members of the 8th Defendant Association had been invited on 14, 10, 1988 in an advertisement in the Guardian Newspapers to pay money to the Association, Plaintiffs say that they had made several attempts to summon an extra ordinary general meeting of the 8th Defendant Association according to the laws of the Association to discuss the ultra vires and unlawful acts of the 1st –3rd Defendants and the nomination of new members of 8th Defendant Council, but the efforts have been frustrated by the 1st –7th Defendants. Plaintiffs have therefore on the 15th December, 1998 issued a writ of summons seeking declarations that the continued occupation of the position of President, Vice President, Treasurer and members of the council of ANAN by the lst-7th defendants, was illegal, null and void, an order restraining them from so acting and another compelling them to render the account of income and expenditure of the 8th defendant (Association of National Accountants of Nigeria - ANAN)

It is relevant to point out that Plaintiff Appellants had obtained an ex parte interim order on the 18/12/98 restraining the 1st –3rd Respondents inter alia from parading themselves a President, Vice President and Treasurer, respectively of the 8th Respondent. The application of the 1st –3rd Respondents to discharge the interim order was refused. The Court went on to grant an interlocutory order in favour of the Appellants restraining the 1st – 3rd Respondents from summoning any Meeting special of otherwise until the determination of the interlocutory injunction. Plaintiffs/Appellants filed and obtained an interlocutory injunction restraining the 1st –3rd Defendants from acting as and/or parading themselves as President, Vice President and Treasurer respectively of the 8th Defendant pending the determination of this suit.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal of the 1st –3rd Defendants against the interlocutory order on the 24th January 2000. Plaintiffs have now appealed the judgment of the Court of Appeal. The situation now is that the parties are in the position in which they were at the filing of the writ of summons.