The respondents in this appeal (the plaintiff before the court below) in their statement of claim are the Bende Divisional Union, Jos Branch and its principal officers. The 1st plaintiff (a socio-cultural Cum tribal Union) in 1962 was desirous of acquiring a landed property for the purposes of its activities. It then mandated their 1st & 2nd defendants along with an Elijah Udemba Ikwunze who were the Union's Trustees, to find a suitable landed property and negotiate its purchase on its behalf. In the same year (1962) 1st and 2nd defendants and the said Elijah Udemba Ikwunze identified a house belonging to a Mr. Daniel Adeleke (now deceased). After hard bargain, the house at No.24 Langtang Street, Jos (formally No.24 Palmer Street, Jos) was sold to the Union for a con¬sideration of £750. Money was raised from the funds of the Union with which payment for the house was effected. However, change of title documents could not be effected because the Union was by then not duly registered.

A sore fate befell the Union after it was registered in 1965 in that the politi¬cal climate in the country at that time was tense and intermittent civil disturbances in the nature of tribal conflicts were recorded. Government therefore de¬-emphasized tribal Unions as a result of which the change of title deeds in the name of Bende Divisional Union was refused by the Jos Local Authority.

Consequent upon the refusal by the Jos Local Authority, the plaintiffs said the Union mandated its trustees which included 1st and 2nd defendants to register the property in their personal capacities as a safety valve pending the return of normalcy in the country. As a result title documents were accordingly registered in their names in trust for the Union.

Matters were further confounded when in 1966, the country was plunged in further bloody civil disturbances which forced members of the Union to flee to the defunct Eastern region. Members of the Union only started to return to Jos in 1970, after the civil war which engulfed the country as the consequence of the civil disturbances of 1966 came to an end. That up to that year the landed property was still held in trust for the Union by the 1st and 2nd defendants and the said late Elijah Udemba Ikwunze.

It was further the plaintiffs' case that immediately after the formal inauguration of Bende Divisional Union on 21st June, 1981, steps were taken by the newly elected officers of the Union to recover the Union's properties with the 1st and 2nd defendants including the landed property in question. Efforts were made to no avail as the house in question was eventually sold to the 4th defendant by the 1st three defendants. The plaintiffs therefore filed suit No. PLD/J306/86 against the defendants claiming for the 1st plaintiff title to it, but that the suit was subse-quently discontinued. Not being able to recover the house amicably the plaintiffs on 25th April, 1994, again filed the present suit.

After the exchange of pleadings by the parties, the appellants filed a motion on notice wherein they prayed for an order to dismiss the respondents' claim on the ground that the action was statute-barred. The motion was strongly contested by the respondents at the end of which the trial court delivered a ruling dismiss¬ing the motion.

Dissatisfied with the ruling, the appellants appealed to the Court of Appeal.