CaseLaw
Okoli V. Ojiakor (1997) CLR 1(c) (CA)
Brief
Facts
The 1st set of respondents herein as plaintiffs in the High Court instituted an action against the 2nd respondent as defendant claiming two declaratory relief's urging the court to declare that the Loretto Special Science School is situate at Adazi-Nnukwu Portion of the land and not Agulu Portion and that the change of the name of the Institution from Loretto Special Science School Adazi Nnukisu to Loretto Special Science School Agulu is null and void and of no effect. The third relief is for an order compelling or directing the 2nd respondent to remove the word Agulu from the name of the School.
Before hearing could commence, the appellants herein filed an application seeking to be joined as co-defendants in the suit. In the affidavit in support of the application, the appellants deposed in paragraph 5 that in or about l935 the applicants' people by various instruments made a grant of the land on which the present Loretto Science School, Agulu is situate to the Roman Catholic mission of the Vicariate of Southern Nigeria.
The trial court upon consideration of the affidavits evidence before it particularly paragraph 5 of the affidavit in support held that since the appellants made grant of the land to the Roman Catholic mission of the vicariate of Southern Nigeria in or about 1935 then they cannot claim to have any proprietary interest in the land. The High Court then dismissed the application.
The appellants dissatisfied with the ruling, appealed to the Court of Appeal contending that the High Court ought to have granted the application in view of the material placed before it by the appellants.