Citation: Bebeji U. S. (2020) “Preventing Sham Defenses in Undefended List Procedure: NPA v Aminu Ibrahim & Co & Anor” Akinsola, L. and Mohammed A. (Eds.) in: Finality and Infallibility: A Review of Selected Supreme Court Decisions of Hon. Justice Amiru Sanusi, ASCO Publishers, Lagos, pp 196-208 1 Preventing Worthless and Sham Defenses in Undefended List Procedure: A Review of NPA Vs Aminu Ibrahim &Co. & Anor. U. S. Bebeji* Introduction Timeous dispensation of justice has always been a stock of concern to the courts. Under the common law, different ways of facilitating the quick resolution of disputes have been developed in order to obviate delays and ensure swift redress as time is always of the essence in commercial relations. Hence, abridged processes such as the “undefended list procedure” were designed under the civil procedure rules of various high courts in order to offer distinctive priority to liquidated and indefensible pecuniary claims. Through this procedure, the court is only required to assess the facts presented before it in order to ensure that there is no abuse of its processes so that there is no delay in serving justice to a deserving plaintiff. 1 One of the major challenges confronting the resort to undefended list procedure, however, is in the manner in which defendants raise sham defences. Most often, the defendants are ready to throw up feeble defences in order to trick the court into moving the matter to the general cause list, thereby seeking to defeat the essence of the procedure in the first place. It is not unusual to allege fraud, contrive “triable” issues and other forms of manoeuvres in order to elongate the trial, or even frustrate the plaintiff into abandoning a genuine claim. Even though the procedure is not a weapon designed to shut out a defendant who can show in his affidavit that there is indeed a triable issue, he cannot be heard to import irrelevant and unnecessary issues in order to confuse or obscure the main issues in controversy. This review, therefore, attempts to examine the undefended list procedure and some of the defences put forward by the defendant as expounded in the lead judgment delivered by Amiru Sanusi, JSC, in the case of Nigerian Ports Authority vs Aminu Ibrahim Company and OboyeAyode and Company. 2 This is with the view of taking a peek into the extraordinary mind * LL. B, LLM, PhD, B.L., DRS, lecturer, Department of Commercial Law, Faculty of Law, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; usbebeji@abu.edu.ng; umarbebeji@yahoo.co.uk. 1 See Nishizawa vs Jethwani [1984] 12 SC 234; Macaulay vs NAL Merchant Bank [1990] 4 NWLR (Pt. 144) 283. 2 [2018]12 NWLR pt. 1632 1-196.