Adeniran Adeyemi V. Raimi Olaore Baale (2017)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report – COURT OF APPEAL

CHINWE EUGENIA IYIZOBA, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment)

This is an appeal against the judgment of Oyo State High Court Ibadan Judicial Division in Suit No. I/88/2000 delivered on the 27th Day of November 2006.

By an Amended Statement of Claim dated 27/03/03 the Appellant as Plaintiff claimed from the Respondent and another now deceased on behalf of Olaore Ige Family as Defendants the following reliefs:

(i) The total sum of N4,668,000:00 (Four Million Six Hundred and Sixty-Eight Thousand Naira) being special damages for the willful damages of the plaintiffs property and of his block molding equipment by the defendant.

(ii) The sum of N500,000 being general damages for continuing trespass being committed by the defendant on the plaintiffs piece or parcel of land situate, lying and being at Olunde Olojuoro road, Ibadan, Oyo State of Nigeria, more particularly described in the Deed of Conveyance dated 9th August, 1976 and registered as No. 7 at Page 7 in Volume 1977 of the Lands Registry Office at Ibadan.

(iii) An Order of perpetual injunction restraining the Defendant by

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themselves, their agents, servants and privies or otherwise however from committing further or other acts of trespass on the plaintiffs land.

(iv) A declaration that the plaintiff as the beneficiary of all that piece or parcel of land situate and being at Olunde Olojuoro road, Ibadan, Oyo State of Nigeria, more particularly described in the Deed of Conveyance dated 9th august, 1976 and registered as No. 7 at Page 7 in Volume 1977 of the Lands Registry Office at Ibadan is entitled to quiet enjoyment and possession.

The main crux of the Appellants case as gathered from his Amended Statement of Claim is that the land in dispute formed part of a vast area of land situate at Olunde Olojuora Road Ibadan originally owned by the Opayemi Family of Odo-kun Area Ibadan from time immemorial by inheritance from their ancestor under Yoruba Native law and Custom. The Plaintiff averred that his father bought the land in 1976 from the accredited representatives of Opeyemi family by virtue of purchase receipt dated 5th July, 1976 and later registered as No. 7 at Page 7 in Volume 1977 of the Lands Registry Office at Ibadan. The

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Plaintiff averred that his father and later himself (after his father’s death) exercised maximum acts of ownership on the land and had been in undisturbed possession of the land since 1976 until the 29th January, 2000 when the Defendants and their army of thugs invaded the land, broke down the wall fence and gate and committed various acts of trespass thereon, hence the institution of this suit.

The Defendants on the other hand in their Further Further Amended Statement of Defence/Counterclaim averred that their family the Olaore Ige Family of Oja-Igbo owned the vast area of land including the portion in dispute which is verged ‘RED’ in the dispute plan tendered by the Defendants at the trial as Exhibit ‘E’. It was averred that the Defendants family had in exercise of its right of ownership made grants of portions of the land to various people. They averred that part of the land in dispute was sold by the family to one Tayo Adisa. They first became aware of the trespass by the Plaintiff in 1999 when Tayo Adisa complained of encroachment on the land sold to him. Not wanting involvement in any land dispute, Tayo Adisa returned the land to the

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