Compulaw - 1st Indigenous Digital Law Library

Brief

Declaration of title to land

Facts

The genesis of this matter briefly, is as follows:On the 12th day of June, 1975, the respondents instituted an action suit No. 0/98/1975 against the appellants in the High Court of the East Central State of Nigeria claiming in terms of the writ:

1
Declaration of title to a piece of land known as Otuocha in this Judicial Division (i.e. Onitsha Judicial Division).
2
Perpetual injunction to restrain the defendants, their agents, servants and assigns from building houses on or trespassing into portions of this land."

On the order of the court, pleadings were filed and delivered or served and the issue joined came up for hearing before Nnaemeka-Agu, J. Nnaemeka-Agu, J. in the course of the trial, after hearing the evidence of 5 witnesses called by the plaintiffs, was appointed a Justice of the Court of Appeal and had to discontinue the hearing. The matter then came up before Umezinwa, J. He began the trial de novo. He heard the evidence of the parties and their witnesses - 14 witnesses testified at the instance of the plaintiffs while 7 witnesses testified at the instance of the defendants. After the close of the defence, the court inspected the locus in quo, i.e. the land in dispute. At the conclusion of the inspection, the learned trial judge heard the addresses of counsel for the parties and adjourned for judgment. He finally delivered his judgment on the 12th day of June, 1978 dismissing the plaintiffs' claim in the following terms:

"Waddington, J. in the 1935 case stated as follows –

'one point should be mentioned on which I do believe Idigo, and that is that for the past 10 years farmers of both villages have used the land, a situation which is consistent with neither possessing exclusive ownership. Those considerations can, in my opinion, lead to only one result and that is that upon this evidence, it is impossible to draw any definite conclusion'.

In the 1950 case, the Privy Council observed thus –

Having considered the whole evidence led in this case and submissions made, I have found myself in no better position to draw any definite conclusion. The plaintiffs have not proved to my satisfaction on the balance of probability that they are the exclusive owners of the land in dispute. Plaintiffs' claims therefore fail and are accordingly dismissed."

The plaintiffs were dissatisfied with the decision and so appealed to the Federal Court of Appeal against the judgment. Three grounds of appeal were filed. They were, in the main, grounds of fact or of mixed law and fact and briefly are as follows:

1
the decision is against the weight of evidence;
2
the learned trial judge seriously misdirected himself in fact and in law when he held as follows:

whatever the historical reason may be, it is my view that the Otuocha land between the Emu and Akor streams was a vacant piece of land and that it was the Umuleri people who first infiltrated into it in the late 19th century' because: there was no evidence of such facts which could support the learned judge's finding.

3
The learned trial judge erred in law in treating rather scantily the evidence of the affidavit sworn to by Chief Okoye and Onowu of Umuleri in 1922, and not giving it the weight due to it as a solemn admission by the Umuleri people that the land in dispute belonged to Aguleri, especially as it was made when there was no pending action or when one was in view, and thereby came to a wrong decision."

The Federal Court of Appeal allowed the appeal. A further appeal was launched.

Issues

The main issue or question for determination in this appeal is whether the...

Okafor V. Idigo III (1984) CLR 6© (SC)

Judgement delivered on June 1st 1984

Brief

Facts

Issues