Alhaji Mansur Salisu & Ors V. Alhaji Ismaila Abubakar & Ors (2014)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report – COURT OF APPEAL

HABEEB ADEWALE OLUMUYIWA ABIRU, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment)

This is a consolidated appeal. The facts of the cases leading up to the consolidated appeals are pretty straight forward and, from the contents of the several documents tendered as exhibits and from the uncontested facts between the parties, the controversies centered around a building block, referred to as Block C, in the Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi Market in Sabon Gari, Kano.

By a letter, the date of which is unclear from the photocopy in the records of appeal, the Kano Municipal Local Government Council, the then Managers of the Sabon Gari Market, rented the said Block C to the first Respondent for use as a restaurant from the 1st of July, 1985 at a yearly rent of N1,666.67k.

The first Respondent took possession of the block and paid his due rents and he subsequently converted the block of building into ten shops which he sublet to the ten Appellants. There was evidence that the first Respondent paid his yearly rents for the block of building consisting of the ten shops to the Kano Municipal Local Government Council up and until 1994.

It was the case of the Appellants that the holding of the first Respondent over the block of building consisting of the ten shops was revoked by the Local Government Council and that the Local Government Council thereafter let the shops to the Appellants directly from December 1994 at a yearly rent of N3,000.00 and the Appellants thereafter stopped dealing with the first Respondents and they paid their rents to the Local Government Council.

The first Respondent challenged the action of the Local Government Council in dealing directly with the Appellants as its tenants by commencing an action in the Chief Magistrate Court, Kano in Suit No KA/402/95. At a point in time the Kano State Government handed over the management of the Sabon Gari Market to the eleventh Respondent and it inherited the Appellants as its tenants in respect of the ten shops in the Block C building as well as the case commenced by the first Respondent against the Local Government Council and the Appellants thereafter paid their rents to the eleventh Respondent.

However, by letters dated the 16th of February, 1998, the eleventh Respondent allocated the said ten shops to the first to tenth Respondents at yearly rent of N7,000.00 subject to review and there is evidence that each of the first to the tenth Respondents paid the rents for the allocated shops to the eleventh Respondent up to and until 2006. Upon the allocation of the shops to them, the first to the tenth Respondents issued the Appellants with seven days notice to quit the shops.

In apparent reaction to the development, each of the Appellants commenced an action in the High Court of Kano State against each of the first to tenth Respondents to whom the particular shop occupied by that Appellant was allocated, along with the eleventh Respondent, and the suits were numbered as Suits Nos. K/12/99 to K/21/99. In the ten suits, the Appellants challenged the allocations of the shops made to the first to the tenth Respondents by the eleventh Respondent and sought for declarations that they are the allotees of the shops and for orders of injunction against the Respondents.

The first to the tenth Respondents commenced an action of their own in Suit No K/233/99 against the Appellants in the High Court of Kano State praying for declarations that they are the rightful allotees of the shops and that the continued occupation of the shops by the Appellants was unlawful, wrongful, unconstitutional, null and void and for possession of the shops forthwith as well as for payment of arrears of rent.

The Chief Judge of Kano State consolidated the hearing of the eleven suits and it was assigned to Honorable Justice Muhammadu Haliru Abdullahi. The matters went to trial and at the conclusion of which the lower Court delivered judgment in the suits on the 16th of January, 2008 dismissing the claims of each Appellant and it directed the eleventh Respondent to relocate the Appellants from the said shops and to hand over vacant possession of the shops to the first to tenth Respondents within ninety days of the judgment. The lower Court deliberated on and resolved the respective cases of the parties thus:

“In deciding this case, it is pertinent to start by accepting the 3 issues formulated by the learned plaintiff’s Counsel as quiet apt. The case of the plaintiffs is that the allocation of their stalls was validly made after the allocation of the 1st defendant Abubakar Isma’ila was revoked. The defendants countered by asserting that the allocation was restored.

In the testimony of PW1 Alhaji Saidu Dattijo Adhama he stated that the allocation of the 1st defendant was revoked but restored in circumstances that could be described as order from above. He said that was done before the allocation of the plaintiffs was revoked. DW11 Aminu Isa Hashim also reechoed the testimony of PW1. He also said that his company continued to receive payments from all the parties pending the outcome of the court case, at which point the 11th defendant will refund all payments to the losing party.

I decided to take the evidence of PW1 and DW11 together because that is what will serve as the fulcrum of where the scale of justice should tilt in resolving the issues for determination. This is so since both parties cases are evidently hinged on the superiority of one’s allocation over the other and it is the testimony of the above 2 officials that should serve in the assessment of the evidence adduced by either party.

On issue 1, I am of the view that since the PW1 stated positively that he was the sole allocating authority and was directly responsible to the Military Administrator on whose instructions he reallocated the shops to the 1st to 10th defendants, I hereby resolve the issue against the plaintiffs and in favour of the 1st to 10th defendants. This is so since the powers of PW1 on matters concerning allocation of stalls in pursuit of which he reallocated the Block C stalls to Isma’ila Abubakar and his sons being the 10 defendants has neither been impeached nor could the non-revocation of the stalls of the plaintiffs be visited on the 10th defendants since it was the fault of the 11th defendant. I therefore hold that the reallocation in the circumstances stated by PW1 and DW11 remains superior to that of the plaintiffs.” (see pages 750 to 751 of the records)