Yunana Jagaba & Ors V. Usman Mohammed Umar (2016)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

HABEEB ADEWALE OLUMUYIWA ABIRU, J.C.A. 

The case leading up to this appeal arose out of dispute over the ownership of a parcel of farm land lying and being at Kamazou Village in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State and the Respondent, as plaintiff, commenced the action in the Lower Court against the Appellants, as defendants. The claims of the Respondent by an amended statement of claim dated the 30th of January, 2012 were for:
i. A declaration that the farm land situate at Kamazou Village in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State rightly belongs to the Respondent by virtue of a certificate of occupancy, No CK/A/000616 and Sale Agreement between him and Alhaji Ahmed Mohammed Goni which conferred title on him.
ii. An order of perpetual injunction restraining the Appellants or whomsoever, their servants, agents, privies and any other person that may act on their behalf from further entering, erecting, developing any building, selling, destroying or transferring the Respondent’s farm land situate at Kamzou Village in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, particularly

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measuring 19.9 Hectares and 49 Acres.

The case of the Respondent on the pleadings was that he became the owner of the parcel of land in dispute by virtue of purchase from one Alhaji Ahmed Mohammed Goni as evidenced by a Sale Agreement and that the said parcel of land was covered by a certificate of occupancy No CK/A/000616 registered as No. 716 at Page 616 in Volume 1 of the Register of Deeds in the office of the Secretary to Chikun Local Government, Kujama. It was his case that about nine months hence, he discovered that the Appellants had been surreptitiously been carving out portions of the farm land and selling same to third parties after destroying all his valuable chattels on the land out of malice during the last post election violence that took place in Kaduna State and that when he sent people to advise the Appellants to vacate his farm land, they were chased by fierce looking armed gunmen. It was his case that he has been denied access to his property and that the Appellants action was a naked show of brute force prejudicial to his interest.

In response, the Appellants denied the case of the Respondents and stated that the land in dispute

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was their ancestral land which they inherited from their grandparents and that they have always been owners of the farm land along with their other brothers who were not joined in the suit and the land contained their burial grounds and was the only farm they have been cultivating to feed themselves and their family for many years. It was their case that they never sold a portion of the farm land to any one called Alhaji Ahmed Mohammed Goni and neither was their farm land taken over by the Chikun Local Government as the Local Government never paid them compensation and that the Local Government did not at anytime survey or laid beacons on the farmland and that the certificate of occupancy issued to the Respondent did not cover their land. It was their case that the farm land in dispute situate at Kamazou Village and measuring 12.31 hectares was first settled upon by their grandfather called Muko Makama over one hundred years ago and he was later joined by his brother called Yero and that the two of them migrated from a place called Kan Rafi to settle on the farm land in dispute and that these two people were later joined by their other Gbagyi brothers, the

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Sauri Kawo family, Zam Maken family, Bagudu family, Kaura Nukacha family and Yahaya Mwa family and that all these people cleared and settled on the large span of farmland.

?It was the case of the Appellants that they were descendants of Nuku Makama, Sauri Kawo, Zam Makeri and Bagudu Zarmai and that they were bom on the farmland in dispute and that their grandparents chose the farmland for settlement because of a large rock located on the land and which they used to hide themselves during the slave trade and that the evidence of the houses built on the farmland by their grandparents and of the pieces of broken pots used by their mothers and wives as well as of the broken farming tools and of grave yards used to bury their young and old were still very visible on the farmland. It was their case that their parents also settled the parents of one Alhaji Abdullahi Musa on the southern part of the land in dispute and that the parcel of land in dispute was bounded on the east by the NNPC Water Intake Road, on the west by the farmland of Damina, a Gbagyi man, on the south by Alhaji Abdullahi Musa’s farmland and on the north by the Kamazau River and that word

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“Kamazau? was a Gbagyi word meaning “before they come” and that they had a survey plan of the land.

?It was the case of the Appellants that at a point in time they were approached and deceived by Alhaji Ahmed Mohammed Goni who said that he had permission of the Government to breakdown the rock on the farmland for purposes of road construction and that they believed him, even without seeing the permission, and that they had to vacate the farmland because Alhaji Mohammed Goni used dynamites to blast the rock and this made the place inhabitable and they relocated to places such as new Kamuzau, Janruwa, etc but that they continued to farm on the land until the rock blasting stopped. The Appellants counterclaimed for:
i. An order for declaration of title to the farmland in dispute situate in Kamazau measuring 12.31 hectares covered by a survey plan in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
ii. An order of this Honorable Court setting aside the Certificate of Occupancy, No CK/A000616
iii. An order of perpetual injunction restraining the Respondent by himself, his servants, agents, privies or any other person claiming through him from