Joseph Babalola Oni & Ors v. Samuel Arimoro (1973)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

FATAYI-WILLIAMS J.S.C. 

In suit No. 1/78/68 which was commenced in the Ibadan High Court, the plaintiff, now respondent, against the defendants, now appellants, declaration of title to a piece of land situate at Sabo near Mokola round about in Ibadan.

The claim was dismissed by the High Court. The plaintiff thereupon appealed to the Western State Court of Appeal. That court allowed the appeal, set aside the judgment of the High Court, and entered judgment for the plaintiff in terms of his claim. The defendant has now appealed to this court against that decision.Paragraphs 2 to 5 to the plaintiff’s statement of claim read-

“2. The land in dispute originally belonged to Aragba family of Ayeye, Ibadan aforesaid.

3. By a deed of conveyance dated 5th day of February, 1968 and registered as No. 8 at page 8 in Volume 1048 of the Lands Registry in the Office at Ibadan, Lawani Akanbi, Mogaji Aragba family and others for themselves and on behalf of the said Aragba family sold the land in dispute to the plaintiff.
4. The defendants, who are squatters on the land in dispute, were duly made aware of the plaintiff’s interest in the said property and by a circular letter dated 21st February, 1968, they were given a month within which to quit and vacate the land.
5. All the defendants are still unlawfully in occupation of the property in dispute in spite of facts hereinbefore alleged.”

in their own statement of defence, the defendants admitted that the land in dispute originally belonged to the Aragba family. They denied the other averments. Indeed, the 1st defendant averred in his statement of defence that the land in dispute was sold to him by the Aragba family by virtue of an agreement dated 22nd day of May, 1953 that he immediately went into possession and had been making use of the land and exercising various acts of ownership thereon since 1953 without let or hindrance. In 1954, he put the 3rd and 4th defendants on the land as his tenants and they are still on the land as such tenants. Thirteen years later that is, in 1967, he put his son (2nd defendant) still does on the land. Finally, the 1st defendant averred in paragraph 8 of his statement of defence as follows –

“18. The 1st defendant will contend at the trial that the deed of conveyance referred to in paragraph 3 of the plaintiff’s statement of claim conveyed nothing to the plaintiff, the Aragba family having divested themselves of title to the land purported to have been conveyed thereby.”

In his evidence in support of his claim, the plaintiff admitted that before he bought and paid for the land in February 1968, he saw palmwine sellers, food sellers and a mechanic on the land. When he asked Lawani Akanbi, the Mogaji of the Aragba family, how these people came to be on the land, the Mogaji told him tht he just found the people there but that he allowed them to stay on because they kept the place clean. He (the plaintiff) then asked the mechanic (3rd defendant) and Raimi mechanic (4th defendant) how they came to occupy the land and each of them told him that the Mogaji of the Aragba family gave them permission to use it and that they would quit when required to do so by the family. When he later told them to quit they refused. He produced the conveyance (exhibit B) in support of the sale of the land to him.

Adebayo Alao Ojo Aragba (3rd plaintiff/witness) a member of the Aragba family testified for the plaintiff. He confirmed that the family sold the land to the plaintiff in January, 1968 and that at the time Lawani Akanbi was the Mogaji of the family but that he had since died. His explanation about those found on the land by the plaintiff was as follows-

“There were people using the land in dispute at the time we sold it to the plaintiff but we did not know how they got there, or how long they had been there. We have sold all our lands. The land in dispute was the 1st one we had before we sold it. I was passing by the land in dispute in the last 15 years and have been seeing people using it. They included the 3rd defendant. Our family was not collecting rents from those there and I do not ask how they got there.”

Earlier, this witness had given the following answers to questions put to him under cross-examination.

” I was at Ibadan 15 years ago. I know 1st defendant. I do not know that he bought land from our family 15 years ago. Lawani Akanbi succeeded Mogaji Fehintola in our family. Majaro was Mogaji before Fehintola. I know Lawani Akanbi and Yesufu Adeleke, as also Ladeji Akanmu, Busari Akanji and Madojutola, all members of my family.”

For this part, the 1st defendant testified that he bought the land from the Aragba family in 1953 and paid 70 pounds for it and that Majaro was the Mogaji of the family at the time. The family thereafter put him in possession. He produced the receipt (exhibit E) given to him in respect of the money which he paid for the land. After payment, the family took him to the land and he got it surveyed in 1954. that same year he let out the land to two mechanics (3rd and 4th defendants) and they have been in possession of it ever since. In 1967 he put his son (2nd defendant) on the land to sell spare parts and kerosene there. One of the mechanics (3rd defendant) testified as follows.

“I and the 4th defendant hired the land in dispute from the 1st defendant since 1954 and we are still there. We pay our rents jointly to him every month. No one has ever disturbed us on the land since we have been thee. We built nine workshops on the land in 1954, hired out three of them to others, we allowed the 2nd defendant to use one of them rent free since about five years and we use the remaining five ourselves.”

It is significant that this witness was not cross-examination about the promise of these mechanics to the plaintiff to quit the land whenever they were requested to do so by the Aragba family. Moreover, no evidence was adduced by the plaintiff to show that the Aragba family ever requested them to quit the land.