“…On whether the Court below was right to order a stay of execution of the garnishee order absolute, made by the trial Court, the Court below held that the execution of a judgment ordering the payment of a specific sum of money does not end with the attachment of the property to the judgment debtor. It ends when the judgment sum is finally paid to the judgment creditor. Until the judgment sum is paid, to the judgment creditor, the process of execution can be stayed for legally recognized reasons. One of such reasons is that there is a pending appeal against the said judgment or order and that if the money is paid to the judgment creditor while the appeal is pending, it will render nugatory, the process and result of the appeal. The Appellant in an appeal against a judgment has a right to protect the appeal from being rendered nugatory and therefore has the right to employ the appropriate legal and equitable process to protect the appeal from being negated. One such process is an application for an order of Court staying the execution of the judgment, pending the determination of the appeal. It is part of the compendium of the Appellant’s right of appeal to be able to protect the exercise of that right from being rendered illusory. It is equally the duty of the Court to protect the appeal from being rendered nugatory. In S.P.D.C (Nig) Ltd & Anor v. Amadi & Ors (2011) LPELR3204 SC, this Court per Muntaka Coomassie JSC held that “… In an application for stay of execution the Court has a primary duty to protect the res from being destroyed, annihilated or demolished. The Court has a duty to ensure that the res is intact, not necessarily for posterity, but for the immediate benefit and pleasure of the party who is finally in victory in the litigation process. This is necessary because if the res is destroyed in the course of litigation before the party gets judgment, then he has no property to make use of in the way he wants as the owner and the direct result in such a circumstance is that the victor has on his land a barren victory, a victory without a difference, an empty victory. He leaves the Court empty handed. In real fact he leaves the Court in victory without victory. If the res is destroyed, annihilated or demolished before the matter is heard on appeal, then this Court will be reduced to a state of hopelessness and that will be bed, very bad indeed. This Court, like every other Court cannot give an order in vain. The Court will then be reduced to a situation where it can bark by the use of its judicial powers under Section 6 (6) of the 1979 Constitution but cannot bite.” I completely agree with the view of his Lordship and I adopt same as mine. In the instant case, it is incumbent upon this Court, to protect the res, pending the outcome of the appeal lodged at the Court below. The proposition or notion that an Appellant in an appeal against a garnishee order absolute cannot apply for an order to stay or suspend the payment of the sum of money attached by the garnishee order absolute pending the determination of the appeal is therefore wrong. In the present case, the sums of money in the accounts of the 7th judgment debtor with the 14th garnishee attached by the order absolute of 19th June, 2019 have not been paid to the judgment creditor till now. In reality, the execution of the order to pay the attached funds to the judgment creditor has not been completed as he has not received the attached funds. It follows therefore that the decisions of this Court in Zenith Bank Plc v. John (2015) 7 NWLR (PT 1458) 393; Union Bank of Nig. Plc. v. Boney Marcus Ind. Ltd (2005) 13 NWLR (PT 943) 654; and UBA v. Ekanem (2010) 2 NWLR (PT 1177) 181; are not applicable here. In Zenith Bank Plc v. John supra, there was no appeal against the garnishee order absolute. There was no pending appeal whose res needed protection by an order of stay of execution. By not appealing against the garnishee order absolute, the garnishee and the judgment debtor accepted it as valid, binding and conclusive. It was in that context that this Court held that the garnishee order absolute could not be stayed as it had become conclusive and binding and there was nothing left for the Court to determine. The decision on Union Bank of Nig. Plc v. Boney Marcus Ind., supra, is also not applicable to this case because the issue dealt with in that case is whether a garnishee order absolute is an interlocutory or final decision. It was held that it was a final decision. This Court did not decide the issue of whether an order of garnishee made absolute is a completed act of execution of judgment. Similarly, the decision in UBA Plc v. Ekanem supra, is not applicable to this case because the facts of that case are different from those of the present case. The execution of the judgment of the writ of attachment had commenced. The judgment debtor had even started paying the judgment sum after notice of attachment was served on it by issuing a bank draft to the judgment creditor. However it refused to give value to the draft and applied to the trial Court for permission of the Court not to give value to the bank draft in the sum of N5 million naira it issued to the bailiff and secondly the sum of N500 it paid to the Bailiffs be returned to it pending the determination of the motion for stay of execution of the main judgment and the one for stay of execution of a subsequent garnishee order absolute in execution of the same judgment. In that case, there was no pending appeal against the garnishee order absolute. In the final analysis, I answer the question, “whether the Court below was right when it granted the 1st Respondent’s application for stay of execution of the Ruling of the Trial Court pending the determination of the 1st Respondent’s appeal”; in the affirmative.” Per ABDU ABOKI, JSC in SANI v. KOGSHA & ORS (2021-LCER-40499-SC) (Pp 38 – 43 Paras A – A)