Network Securities Ltd V. Dahiru & Ors (2022)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

AMINA ADAMU AUGIE, J.S.C. 

The first Respondent, as Plaintiff, instituted the action that culminated in this Appeal at the Federal High Court, wherein he claimed the following Reliefs –

a) A Declaration that the Plaintiff is entitled to the Statutory Right of Occupancy over Plot 109, located at Area A8, Wuse II District, Abuja, covered by Certificate of Occupancy No. FCT/ABU/BA. 50.

b) A Declaration that the purported revocation of the Plaintiff’s right of Occupancy and the purported allocation of same piece of land to the 3rd Defendant was and still is null and void and of no effect whatsoever.

c) A Perpetual Injunction restraining the Defendants by themselves, their servants, agents, or privies from entering, doing anything on, or taking anything from the piece of land known as Plot 109, Wuse Il District, Abuja, and which is in the Plaintiff’s possession.

d) The sum of Two Million Naira (N2,000,000.00) damages against the 1st and 2nd Defendants.

​Initially, there were only two Defendants – the second and third Respondents. But, by an Order of the Court dated 20/1/1997, one “Nanfa Ponfa”, who was allocated the said Plot of land during the pendency of the suit, was joined as the “3rd Defendant’, and though, he was served with Court processes, he did not defend the action at the trial Court. He was not a Party in the appeal filed at the Court of Appeal, and he is also not a Party to the appeal in this Court.

The Appellant, who bought the said plot of land from Nanfa Ponfa, was joined on its own motion as 4th Defendant by Order of Court dated 13/3/2000. At the trial, the first Respondent, as Plaintiff, testified and called one Witness. The second and third Respondents, as the first and second Defendants, called one Witness. The third Defendant did not participate at the trial at all. The Appellant, as fourth Defendant, called its Property Manager, as Witness.

Learned Counsel filed and adopted their respective Written Addresses. In the trial Court’s judgment written by Okeke, J., who heard the matter, but delivered in open Court on 11/6/2003 by Egbo-Egbo, J., he held as follows:

The 1st and 2nd Defendants woefully failed to prove that the revocation notice, which is a sine qua non for a valid revocation of Plaintiff’s right of occupancy was served on him… Having failed to prove the service of the mandatory revocation notice on the Plaintiff, the purported revocation of the Plaintiff’s right of occupancy over Plot 109, A8, Wuse II District, Abuja is null and void and of no effect whatsoever. The Plaintiff is, therefore, still entitled to the Statutory Right of Occupancy over the said Plot 109 located at A8, Wuse Il District, Abuja. It is trite that you cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stand. As the re-allocation of the Plot to 3rd Defendant is based on the purported revocation of the Plaintiff’s right, which revocation has been declared null and void, the 1st and 2nd Defendants had nothing to re-allocate to 3rd Defendant. The 3rd Defendant, therefore, had nothing to sell or transfer to the 4th Defendant. In view of the Declarations made, perpetual injunction is ordered against each of the Defendants in favour of the Plaintiff. General damages of N500,000.00 is awarded against the 1st and 2nd Defendants in favour of the Plaintiff.

Aggrieved, the Appellant filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal, which failed; the Court of Appeal in its judgment delivered on 24/1/2007, concluded that:

The law will aid those, who are watchful and not those, who are asleep, a situation that seems to have been the lot of the Appellant. If the Appellant or his agent had conducted proper search, as is required in a land transaction, they would have not only found the much earlier title of the 1st Respondent obtained ten years before, and that the 1st Respondent was fighting not to have that title or right taken away by the 2nd Respondent, which process was pending for two years before the acquisition by the Appellant. It is for the prevailing circumstances that I cannot indulge the frustration of the Appellant, who has exhibited a degree of carelessness. How to reward that lack of carefulness to the disadvantage of the one, who rightly possesses the title or right, especially since in his case against his opponent, he showed sufficient proof that the attempt to revoke his title was outside the terms of his Certificate of Occupancy and the law, being the Land Use Act to which he and the 2nd and 3rd Respondents were bound… This appeal fails as lacking in merit. I dismiss it and affirm the judgment of the Court below with the Orders that accompanied that decision.

Still aggrieved, the Appellant appealed to this Court with a Notice of Appeal that contains eight Grounds of Appeal, however, at the hearing of the appeal, it abandoned Grounds 1-7 thereof, and they were accordingly struck out. The extant Ground of Appeal is Ground 8, wherein it complained as follows –

The learned Justices of the Court of Appeal erred in law by confirming the judgment of the Federal High Court, which Court had no jurisdiction to try issues of Title to Land, land transactions and trespass to land having regard to Section 230(1) of Decree No. 107 of 1993 and Section 251(1) of the 1999 Constitution.