D.O. Runsewe & Ors Vs Alhaji Jimoh Odutola (1996)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

ONU, JSC. 

In the High Court of Justice of the Ijebu-Ode Judicial Division sitting at Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, the Plaintiff/Respondent instituted on behalf of himself and other members of the NAGA family, an action against the Defendants/Appellants claiming:

“1. Declaration of title according to Native Law and Custom to the landed property situate at Agbala Isasa, Porogun, Ijebu-Ode.

2. N20.00 being damages for continuing trespass committed on the said land by the defendants.
3. Injunction restraining the defendants, their servants, agents or anyone claiming through them from further entry on the land.” After pleadings were ordered, filed and exchanged by the parties the case went to trial. The Plaintiff/Respondent’s case went like this.

That his family’s claim to the land in dispute was based on inheritance from his ancestor, Ashasa, its original settler/owner. He traced his lineage through Naga from Ashasha, claiming that Ashasha, his son Naga and descendants, were buried on the land in dispute.

The Defendants/Appellants also founded their claim to the land or inheritance from Ashasa who they otherwise referred to as Lakoja. They in addition demonstrated that Lakoja had four children to wit: Olowosona, Durodoye Oke Eleko, Deinde Obaoke and Kakanfo Ojomade Nowoola and that apart from their four children who settled on the land in dispute with their respective families, Lakoja allowed four other families to settle on another portion of the land.

Further, that Naga was an Ifa priest who came as a tenant of Deinde Obaoke from Okun-Owa.

The trial court (Coram Ademola Odunsi, J.), after considering all the evidence adduced, accepted the traditional history proffered by the Plaintiff/Respondent and rejected that set up by the Defendants/Appellants. The court then made, inter alia the following specific findings of fact, to :

(i) That Naga, the Plaintiff/Respondent’s ancestor, was the descendant of Ashasa who the two sides admitted to be the original owner of the land.

(ii) That Nowoola and Olowosona, whom the Defendants/Appellants claimed to be the descendants of Ashasa were not the descendants of Ashasa and were not even related to Ashasa or the Naga family.

(iii) That the Plaintiff/Respondent’s family as descendant of Naga was therefore entitled to the property of Ashasa.

Despite these findings, however, the trial court declined to grant the declaration of title of any of the ancillary reliefs sought by the Plaintiff/Respondent, holding inter alia, that the Plaintiff/Respondent did not prove “recent acts of ownership” and that the Defendants/Appellants had been for long “in possession” of the land in dispute. It accordingly dismissed the Plaintiff/Respondent’s claim.

The Plaintiff/Respondent being aggrieved by this decision appealed to the Court of Appeal (hereinafter called the court below) sitting in Ibadan. The Court below allowed the appeal and granted all the reliefs the Plaintiff/Respondent sought.

Being dissatisfied with the decision of the court below, the Defendants/Appellants (who shall hereinafter be referred to simply as Appellants) have appealed to this court premised on a Notice of Appeal containing three grounds. The parties later exchanged briefs of arguments in accordance with the rules of court. The Appellants formulated three issues for our determination, namely:

(a) Whether mere proof of traditional history with regard to ownership was enough to entitle the plaintiff/respondent to judgment for a declaration of title, damages for trespass and an order for perpetual injunction.