The Traditional Religious Practitioners’ Association, TRPA, of Nigeria, have protested against the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, over the Commission’s refusal to register their body.
TRPA has also dragged the CAC, to the Federal High Court in Enugu for the commission’s rejection to register the traditional worshippers as a religious body like the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN and the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, NSCIA.
The Network gathered that the Association had in it’s online application for registration to the CAC in June 2022, requested for the TRPA to be registered as a corporate entity for the promotion of their faith, but the CAC in its reply to the application turned down the request for registration.
The leader of TRPA, Dibia Chukwuma Ezeoruonye and two others as the Trustees, alleged that they were refused registration.
According to them, the Commission replied them on July 11 2022. The letter of CAC reads; “The CAC regrets to inform you that it was unable to approve any of the names(s) submitted for approval…name not registrable as their forms of worship and practices are not publicly available.”
However, not satisfied by the reply of the CAC, TRPA, went to court to seek redress.
In their application to the court with Suit No FHC/EN/CS/140/2022, their lawyer, Obi K. Odo Esquire, said the traditional religious worshippers contend that by the denial for registration, the CAC has discriminated against the plaintiffs on the ground of their religious worship, “contrary to the provision of section 42 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
He stated that other religious groups have been incorporated by the defendants but the CAC chose to deny them, just because, “we are traditional worshipperS.
“There is no other way to convince the defendants to go ahead and incorporate us as the Board of Trustee of the Association except by the intervention of this court,” the plaintiffs petitioned.
Those joined in the suit as co-defendants are the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Attorney General and Minister for Justice.
According to their lawyer, “the Plaintiffs are seeking for a declaration that the CAC denial of approval of Traditional Religious Practitioners’ Association as a name for the purposes of incorporating them as registered Trustees of TRPA is a breach of their right to freedom of religion/worship and discriminatory contrary to the 1999 constitution as amended; stating also that the refusal under the part C of the Companies and Allied Matters Act was ultra vires and unlawful.”
“They therefore pleaded with the court for an order compelling the CAC to approve the registration; determine if the group is registrable and whether the CAC was right to have denied the approval of the name that does not offend the law” the lawyer said.
Leader of the TRPA Board of Trustees, Dibia Chukwuma Ezeoruonye, while supporting the affidavit of the originating summon, explained that the reason given for the denial of the approval does not “accord with the circumstances allowed by the law for the CAC to refuse the proposed name and thereby breached their freedom of religion guaranteed in section 38 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Government of Nigeria which is a second defendant on the matter.”
Hearing of the matter will start after the annual vacation of the judges
