The 1st Respondent owned a landed property known as Nos. 157/159 Club Road, Kano which it mortgaged to the 2nd Respondent by depositing the certificate of occupancy with it in consideration for a loan granted to the 1st Respondent. The 1st Respondent was in financial difficulty and decided to sell the property to Incar Nigeria Ltd. as per the Board resolution of the Company in Exhibit 30. Incar Nigeria Ltd. declined the offer to buy the property and the Appellant then entered into negotiation to buy the property for himself for the sum of N2.3 million to be paid in installments sometime in 1983. He continued to pay the installments until he had paid a total of N1.8 million leaving a balance of N500,000.00. Sometime in 1984 the Appellant was put in possession of the property by officials of the 1st Respondent. He improved the property and let it out to tenants and began to collect rents. Meantime, he had not paid the balance of N500,000.00. In July 1985 the Appellant and the 2nd Respondent agreed that if the Appellant paid the balance of N500,000.00 to the 2nd Respondent it would release the documents of title to the Appellant as per Exhibit 32. The Appellant was unable to make the payment throughout the year 1985 and the 2nd Respondent then wrote Exhibit 49 cancelling the whole transaction on the ground that it could no longer wait indefinitely for the Appellant to pay up. Following this the Appellant tried in vain to pay the money in 1986 but the 2nd Respondent refused to accept the payment. The Appellant then went to Court to enforce specific performance of the contract of sale. The Respondents counter-claimed as set out earlier in this judgment and the 2nd Respondent called a witness to testify that it had lost a lot of money by the failure of the Appellant to pay to it the sum of N500,000.00. The 1st Respondent also requested the Court to order the Appellant to account for the rents collected by him. The learned trial Judge dismissed Appellant's claim and gave judgment in respect of some of the counter¬claims of the Respondent.

One thing that is very startling about this case is the way it has been handled by the two lower Courts that is, leaving out of their discussion one aspect of the mortgage created by the deposit of the 1st Respondent's title documents with the 2nd Respondent Bank and its wide legal implications in the context of this matter. This is because there is no other way of identifying the 1st Respondent's extent of interest in the disputed property other than by examining in its ramification, the deposit of the 1st Respondent's title deeds in the mortgage transaction vis-a-vis the bank loan granted it by the 2nd Respondent.