MR. Canice Ezeihuaku V. Josiah Ezeihuaku (2016)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report – COURT OF APPEAL

TOM SHAIBU YAKUBU, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment)

The appellant’s case is that the respondent and himself are joint owners of a three storey commercial building containing twelve (12) flats of three (3) bedrooms and parlour each situate at No. 3 Ezeikhuaku Street, Nkpikpa Layout Ogbaru Local Government Area of Anambra State. The said land was said to have been jointly purchased by the parties from one Christopher Ibekwe of Umuota village, Obosi vide a memorandum of customary grant of land dated 20th April, 1993.

The appellant claim that the money used for the purchase of the said land and erection of the three storey building came from profits made and due to both of them from a joint business venture which they started in 1988. And that the said joint business venture grew from a partnership and metamorphosed into a limited liability company – named Joanca Ventures (Nig) Ltd in June, 1993. The parties were sharing their business profits into two and at the same time, set aside part of the profits they would have shared, for the erection and completion of the three storey building aforesaid. The survey plan, building plan and

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other documents with respect to the building aforesaid, bear the joint names of the parties.

By the end of 1999, the parties completed the three storey building aforesaid and let same to tenants in 2000. Rents collected from tenants were shared equally between them from January 2000 till December 2002. By the end of the year 2003 the defendant/respondent who usually kept the rents refused to bring same out for sharing.

By 2nd of August 2005, from the profit accruing to them, the parties bought another land at Fimber Street Nkpikpa Ogbaru L. G. A.., with the agreement that another three storey building would be erected thereat. On completion, the appellant would take the new building exclusively while the 1st building would be exclusively that of the respondent. The new land was bought in the personal name of the appellant and a building started to be erected on it with the profit of the company but which building is still uncompleted. The respondent stopped providing the money for the continued construction of the building.

The appellant asked the respondent for account of the rents collected on several occasions but the respondent started to

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openly assert and claim his exclusive ownership of the 3 storey building aforesaid and even the uncompleted building at Fimber Street, hence the appellant filed this action.

The respondent’s case is that he in 1988 invited the appellant his younger brother to join him in his already established business. And that the appellant did not contribute anything. He was paying him salaries. When in 1993, the business became incorporated as a limited liability company, he made appellant one of the three directors. That everything that the plaintiff got in life, e.g. his landed properties, cars and even his wife were acquired by him out of the respondent’s magnanimity. The land on which the 3 storey building was built was bought sometime in 1990 by the appellant using the respondent’s money. At that time, the respondent was out of town and the appellant fraudulently inserted his name in the agreement of sale of land, the survey plan and the building plan without the permission of the respondent. That he discovered the fraud before signing his own signature but he chose to do nothing because of their blood relationship.

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It is the soar relationship between

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