grounds other than of law only from the decision of a High Court in any of the Northern States (in this case, Plateau State) sitting in its appellate jurisdiction to the Court of Appeal. One would have thought that the question raised has been put to rest by the decision of this Court in Alhaji Oloyede Ishola V. Memodu Ajiboye (1994) 6 NWLR 506. This Court by majority, decided, inter alia, in that case that in considering an application for leave to appeal the High Court of Kwara State must be constituted by two Judges of that Court as required by section 63 (1) of the High Court Laws of "Northern Nigeria, Cap. 49 Laws Nigeria, 1963 (applicable also in Plateau State). We being called upon in this appeal to depart from that decision to hold that such an order is valid where it is made by a single of the High Court of the State.

This case has a chequered history. The plaintiff, who is the appellant in the appeal now before us, had in 1988 in the Area Court Jos, in suit No: JUAC-09CV-1988 sued the defendant, now respondent, claiming -

The case went to trial at the conclusion of which the trial court found for the plaintiff and adjudged:

"I hereby give judgment in favour of plaintiff against the defendant, and declared that plaintiff is the rightful owner of the land situated at and known as No. T45A Laranto covering 0.012 hectares and ordered that the defendant should not trespass or interfere with the said land whatsoever, and court hereby awarded the sum of N1,500.00 (One thousand five hundred Naira) against the defendant. Court order defendant to pay the cost of action N140.00 plus N100.00 counsel appearance and N30.00 taxi to locus in quo".

The defendant being dissatisfied with this judgment made fruitless applications to both the High Court and the Court of Appeal to appeal against the said judgment. Still undaunted, he applied to the Upper Area Court Jos - the trial Court - for an order.

The plaintiff appealed against this judgment to the High Court of Plateau State sitting in Jos. That Court (Coram-Atsi and Ogbe JJ) dismissed the appeal. The plaintiff, being further dissatisfied, applied to the High Court for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal. The application was heard by Atsi J. sitting alone, and granted. Following the grant of leave, an appeal was lodged to the Court of Appeal.

At the Court of Appeal, the defendant filed a notice of preliminary objection on the grounds inter alia that the appellant has not complied with the mandatory requirements of section 221 (1) of the Constitution of Nigeria 1979 as amended in that leave was not obtained before bringing this appeal.