Abel Nkado & Ors Vs Ozulike Obiano & Anor (1997)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

ONU, J.S.C. 

The case giving rise to the appeal herein is in relation to a land dispute wherein the plaintiffs/respondents claimed in representative capacities as against the defendants/appellants who defended in their representative capacities for:

(1) title to the land in dispute

(2) damages for trespass and

(3) perpetual injunction.

Pleadings were ordered, duly filed and exchanged. Evidence was adduced from witnesses called by either side, at the close of which, the learned trial Judge entered judgment for the plaintiffs/respondent’s claim in its entirety.

The background facts in the case herein as borne out in the plaintiffs/respondents Writ of Summons dated 25th June, 1979 and in the parties respective pleadings in Suit No. AA/49/79 commenced in the Awka High Court may be summarised as follows:-

The respondents in their 37 paragraph statement of claim based their case on:

(i) tradition, tracing their title to their great ancestor Obekwu Egolum from whom they inherited their land through their genealogical tree;

(ii) the fact that appellants migrated from Arondizogu and were Strangers in Agulu and inter-marry with respondents people who granted them part of their lands for residential and farming purposes but who in 1979, on taking over the lands of their kith and kin who had died or returned to Arondizogu, trespassed on the respondents land in dispute, hence this suit.

(iii) the fact that they from their predecessors and they themselves after them, have been owners in possession of the land in dispute from time immemorial exercising maximum acts of ownership and possession over the land till the present day.

(iv) the fact that the land in dispute, verged pink in their plan, is only part of their (respondents) land, all verged red, and forms one parcel of land with another contiguous, continuous, and identical parcel of land, verged green in their plan – both parcels together verged red being separated by Agulu-Nnobi Road with both bearing the name “Agu-Obekwu” and

(v) that the elders and councillors of Umunkpoko and Nkitaku had arbitrated over the dispute according to custom and found that the land in dispute belongs to the respondents. The respondents’ plan at the trial is Exhibit ‘A’.

The appellants in their 42 paragraph statement of defence denied, traversed and joined issues with the respondents in most of the latters averments of facts contained in their claim. In particular they contended that: