Emmanuel Uzoewulu & Anor V. Ugwueze Ezeaka & Ors. (2000)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

MUHAMMAD, J.C.A. 

Two distinct and separate writs were taken out by parties to the present appeal. In the one, the respondents as plaintiffs sought against the appellants then defendants the following reliefs:-

(1) Declaration of title to the piece or parcel of land otherwise known as and called “Ana Mbaji” situate at Okafia-Ihiala annual value of which is N10.

(2) N1000 damages for trespass on the said land. And

(3) Perpetual injunction restraining the defendants, their agents or privies from committing further acts of trespass on the said land.

The particular suit No. HN/43/76 was first in time. Some defendants in the suit took out a subsequent writ against the plaintiffs in the very first suit. The suit so subsequently commenced was No. HN/13/77. Pursuant to the lower court’s order, the two suits were rolled into one and heard as a single suit. In legal parlance they are said to have been consolidated. This appeal is against the judgment of Hon. Justice K.K. Keazor of the Anambra State High Court sitting at Nnewi dated 25/7/97 and in respect of Suits No. HN/43/76 and No. HN/13/77 that had been so consolidated.

It is pertinent to note that defendants in Suit No. HN/43/76 as plaintiffs in suit No. HN/13/77 had the same prayers against plaintiffs in the former suit who had become defendants in the subsequent suit. The only addition in the prayers of the plaintiffs in the subsequent suit against the defendants therein was for forfeiture of the land in dispute.

Before the consolidation of the two suits, pleadings had been ordered, filed, exchanged and duly settled. The consolidated suit went to full trial. Thereat, both parties testified on their own behalf and called witnesses. Both parties, in the main, relied on traditional history, numerous acts of ownership and possession over the land in dispute. The plaintiffs also pleaded the fact of customary arbitration in respect of the land in dispute.

The parties in the instant appeal claimed a common ancestor at the lower court. His name? Dioha or Idioha.

The plaintiffs/respondents’ claim was that Idioha’s Obi was not large enough to accommodate all his children. The Obi was located at the site of the present day Ihiala motor park. Elekechem was Idioha’s Eldest son. Plaintiffs/respondents averred that Elekechem by conquering the Ameja, Ohoma and Ochi people, acquired their land which he renamed Okahia. Elekechem occupied the land he acquired leaving behind his three brothers at Dioha’s Obi. These brothers were Nnebuogwu, Mmelike and Mmeriwno. They were eventually resettled at Okahia where Elekechem’s children granted them portions of the conquered land after the death of their father. Plaintiffs/respondents’ further claimed that Elekechem was their progenitor and the land he acquired by conquest passed from generation to generation until they eventually inherited the same. It is a portion of the inherited land that is in dispute. They call the land “Ana Mbaji” and is verge red in their survey plan No. MEC/494/77.

The defendants/appellants’ trespass on the land in dispute was the first threat to plaintiffs/respondents’ ownership of the land in dispute and thus the action in the suit which culminated into the instant appeal. Plaintiffs/respondents further averred that defendant appellants were descendants of Mmelike one of Elekechem’s brothers. Appellants eventually inherited the land granted to their ancestors by Elekechem’s children which land had no common boundary with the land in dispute.

Some acts of ownership demonstrated by the plaintiffs/respondents include the sale of part of the land in dispute to relations of the defendants/appellants in 1972 and 1975. Plaintiffs also averred that in 1976 when the defendants/appellants trespassed on the disputed land both parties submitted to an arbitration conducted by the Oluoha-in-council. The arbitration favoured the plaintiffs/respondents.

In view of the venom with which the import of this arbitration was argued by parties, paragraphs 29, 30, 31, 33 and 34 of the plaintiffs/respondents’ pleadings in suit No.HN/43/76 are hereunder reproduced:-

“(29) Suddenly, in 1976 the defendants broke into the land and started clearing part of this land in dispute and removing boundary trees. (30) The defendants protested to Chief John Udoji, the Oluoha of Ihiala and he summoned both parties to his palace for settlement with the elders and village-heads.