The respondent as plaintiff in the Upper Area Court Zaria, instituted an action against the appellant as defendant and claimed as follows:

"I am sueing (sic) Alhaji Amadu because I want him to give me back my father's farmlands. They are situated at Shika, Jushi, U/Kaya and also here at Kwarbai."

The respondent's case was that she inherited the land from her father and that the farmlands in dispute were left in the care of Alhaji Babale (appellant's father) by the respondent's father. The respondent claimed from the appellant the return of the farmland left in the care of the appellant's father. The appellant disagreed with the respondent and claimed the land in dispute as the one he inherited from his father who also inherited it from his own father. None of the parties claimed or led evidence to show or suggest that the parties were joint owners or were claiming joint inheritance of the land in dispute.

At the conclusion of the trial the trial Upper Area Court found that the land in dispute was subject of joint inheritance between the respondent and the appellant and ordered that they be shared equally between the parties. The appellant was dissatisfied with the decision of the trial Upper Area Court and he appealed to the High Court of Kaduna State. When the case came up for hearing in the High Court, that court declined to entertain the appeal on the ground that the matter in dispute between the parties being an issue of inheritance (and therefore one under Islamic personal law) it had no jurisdiction and it was the Sharia Court of Appeal that had jurisdiction by virtue of section 242(l)(c)of the 1979 Constitution. The appellant was aggrieved and appealed to the Court of Appeal which, dismissed the appeal.

The appellant, further dissatisfied with the decision of the Court of Appeal, appealed to the Supreme Court contending that the finding of the Upper Area Court that the land in dispute was subject of joint inheritance by the patties (and on which the High Court and the Court of Appeal based their decisions) was erroneous and that it is the claim of the plaintiff that determines the jurisdiction of court and not the court's findings.