AKP IROROH, JCA (Delivering the Lead Judgment): This is an interlocutory appeal against the ruling of the High Court of Rivers State sitting at Ahoada, delivered on 13th March, 2000. The appellants, dissatisfied with the said ruling, appealed to this court on five grounds of appeal and distilled three issues for determination as follows:- “(1) Whether, having regard to the affidavit evidence tendered in this case and all the circumstances of this case, including the time lapse (sic: time-lag) between January 1991, when the suit was filed, and January, when the application for interlocutory injunction was made. It was proper to restrain the appellants by order of interlocutory injunction pending the determination of the suit.
Whether the learned trial Judge did properly and judiciously appreciate the principles that interlocutory injunctions are employed to preserve (not to alter) the status quo; that of that stage the contending interest of the parties must be balanced and that injun…