"... I am fortified in this view, given the settled and if I may say immutable position of the law to the effect that a counter-claim, though tried in the main action in which it has been brought, is an independent action and hence that a Court must necessarily give a judgment thereon. See the case of OROJA V. ADENIYI (2017) LPELR - 41985(SC) wherein the Supreme Court dwelling on nature of counter-claim, stated per Peter-Odili, JSC; thus: "There is a rich case law on the meaning and purport of a counterclaim and I shall have recourse to a few in aid at this point in time. See Effiom v Ironbar (2000) 1 NWLR (Pt. 678) 341 where it was held thus "A counter-claim is an independent action and it needs not relate to or be in anyway connected with the plaintiffs' claim or raise (sic) out of the same transaction. It is not even analogous to the plaintiff's claim. It need not be an action of the same nature as the original claim. A counterclaim is to be treated for all purposes for which justice requires it to be treated as an independent action." See also the case of Okonkwo v. C. C. B. (2003) FWLR (Pt.154) 457 at 508, the nature of a counter-claim had been clearly spelt out as follows:"Counter-claim though related to the principal action is a separate and independent action and our adjectival law requires that it must be filed separately. The separate and independent nature of a counter claim is borne out from the fact that it allows the defendant to maintain an action against the plaintiff as profitably as in a separate suit. It is a weapon of defence which enables the defendant to enforce a claim against the plaintiff as effectually as an independent action. As a matter of law a counter claim is a cross action with its separate pleadings, judgments and costs." xxxx This is because a counter claim is a different action from that on which the main claim is predicated which translates to two separate actions for which there must be two distinct judgments which can be in the same process or suit or another date and process. There is no running away from the distinction. See Akinola v Unilorin (2004) NWLR (Pt.885) 616; Obi v Biwater Shellevbear Nig. Ltd (1997) 1 NWLR (Pt.484) 722."

Per LOKULO-SODIPE, J.C.A IN BIKO & ANOR v. AMAECHI & ORS CITATION: (2018) LPELR-45069(CA)