Chief Eke Oja & Ors V. Chief Kanu Ukpai (1954)
LawGlobal Hub Judgment Report – West African Court of Appeal
Inter-Tribal Boundaries Settlement Ordinance (Cap. 95)—Tribes in adjoining provinces—Resident of one province reviewing inquiries in two provinces.
Estoppel and res judicata—Decision that there is no boundary dispute between
tribes.
Facts
Section 3 of the Ordinance provides that 44 Any district officer may, with the approval of the Resident in charge of the province, inquire into and decide any dispute between two or more tribes as to the boundaries between the lands of such tribes and section 6 (originally section 5) provides that “ the Resident in charge of the province may . . . review the proceedings of any inquiry held, etc.”
(“District Officer” includes an Assistant District Officer: see section 3-A of the Interpretation Ordinance.)
This was a dispute over a piece of land between the people of Biakpan, a tribe residing in Owerri Province, and the people of Asaga, a tribe residing in the Ogoja Province, who lost as defendants and appealed against the judgment granting a declaration of title to the plaintiffs, the Biakpans, and an injunction. The evidence proved the Biakpans’ claim, but the Asagas raised a point under the above Ordinance.
There had been a dispute between the Biakpans and the Eziafos, and an assistant district officer was appointed by the Resident of Ogoja to settle the boundary. The Eziafos were not satisfied and brought in the Asagas, who had given them the land. An assistant district officer of the Owerri Province was appointed to hold a further inquiry, and this time the Biakpans were not satisfied.
The two Residents then asked the two assistant district officers to go into the matter together, and these fixed an arbitrary line as the boundary as a measure for preserving peace. The Resident of Ogoja then took up the matter for review and ordered that all land lying between the villages of Biakpan, Eziafo, and Asaga, “shall be owned in common by the three villages”; and in his report the Resident stated that the three villages so desired and wished to have no boundary.
That was a misapprehension: for the Asagas at any rate never agreed that the land should be owned in common, and their defence in the present suit was that they were the owners. But at the same time they pleaded estoppel or resjudicata on the basis of the Resident’s order against the Biakpans’ claim to the land.
Held
The Resident of Ogoja’s order was ultra vires the Ordinance and a nullity:—
(a) because what the Ordinance contemplates and provides for is a dispute between tribes as to the boundaries between their lands and the settlement of the boundaries, whilst his decision was that there was no dispute about boundaries; and
(b) because he purported to review the proceedings of inquiries in two provinces—the province of Ogoja, where the Asagas resided, and the province of Owerri, where the Biakpans resided—whilst he could not, under the Ordinance, exercise the powers conferred thereby outside the limits of his province.
Appeal dismissed.
