The Plaintiff, S.O. Jinadu sued one Patrick Nzom (for himself and on behalf of the family of J.C. Nzom deceased). The Writ of Summons is at page 5 of the record of proceedings and was dated 14th February, 1973. The Treasury Receipt C.R. 897461 for filing was dated 10/2/73. It is therefore permissible to assume that the Writ was filed on 10/2/73. The Plaintiff filed his Statement of Claim on the 30/2/73. The Writ and the Statement of Claim could not be served on Patrick Nzom who, it was alleged, died sometime in 1949. This fact was however unknown to the Plaintiff until long after filing the Writ. On the 26th day of March, 1973, Kazeem, J. (as he then was) granted the Plaintiff leave to serve the Writ and other processes by substituted means, namely by publication in the Daily Times Newspaper. This was done on the 11th February, 1975.

The case was not heard for 13 years, on its merits. Unknown to the plaintiff, the defendant had died 21 years before he instituted the action.

An objection was taken that the writ of summons was issued against a dead person and a motion was heard for an order striking out the suit, made by the appellants who were not personal representatives of the deceased, but the family of J.C. Nzom. It was dismissed.

Appellant appealed to the Court of Appeal, which dismissed the appeal and affirmed the decision of the High Court.

Appellants appealed to the Supreme Court s