The appellant used the respondents at the High Court claiming declaration of title to a piece of land, damages for trespass to the land and perpetual injunction to restrain further trespass.

Subsequently, the appellant applied for an obtained an ex parte interim injunction. In his affidavit in support of his motion ex parte, the appellant deposed that he surveyed the land in dispute in 1966 and registered his survey plan in the same year at the Surveyor-General’s office. He also deposed that after the Nigerian Civil War, he retrieved all of his deed of conveyance. That sometime after a publication by his vendors regarding the land part of which he bought, the 2nd and 3rd respondents purported to sell the land in dispute to an Ibo man but the land owning family cautioned them and asked them to refund the monies paid. The appellant further deposed that pursuant to the family’s decision, the 3rd respondent approached him for compensation and he paid for the sake of peace.

The appellant further deposed that he had been in peaceful occupation of the land in dispute for over twenty years until July 1992 when a survey came on the land to survey same at the instance of the 1st respondent.

Thereafter, the appellant filed a motion on notice with an affidavit in support for interlocutory injunction. He also filed a statement of claim in which he averred that he bought the land in dispute in 1964 but lost his deed of conveyance during the Nigeria Civil war. That in 1972, he paid of the 3rd respondent when the latter demanded compensation from him in respect of the land in dispute. He further averred that he had successfully defended his title to the land in dispute before a Juju priest when a third party claimed title to the land and that he had been on the land until 1992 when the respondents trespassed on same.

In response to the appellant’s statement of claim and motion on notice for injunction, the respondents filed a statement of defence and a motion for the dismissal of the appellant’s action on the ground that it is statute barred. In the affidavit in support of the respondents’ motion, the 1st respondent to facts that he acquired title to the land in dispute in 1967 and had exercise various acts of ownership thereon.

The appellant however did not file a counter-affidavit to the respondent’s motion.

In its ruling on the respondent’s motion, the trial court held that the appellant’s statement of claim was vague as to the date of accrual of the appellant’s right of action and that the averments in the pleading and the deposition in the appellant’s affidavit on how he lost possession of his deed of conveyance were contradictory. The trial court therefore had recourse to the affidavit filed in support of the appellant’s motion ex parte, the respondent’s affidavit in support of their motion for dismissal of the suit and the respondents’ statement of defence, and held that the appellant’s suit was statute barred.

The appellant was dissatisfied with the judgement and appealed to the Court of Appeal.