Chief Sylvanus Udenkwo & Ors V. Sebastine Nwosu & Ors (2014)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report – COURT OF APPEAL

FREDERICK O. OHO, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment)

The issue between the parties and by virtue of which they brought themselves to the Court of Appeal since 2008 is the issue of admissibility of a document and the objection taken by the Defendants who are of the view that in tendering the said documentary evidence, the provision of Section 97(1)(C) of the Evidence Act was not strictly adhered to.

The attitude of this Court to matters of this nature which are experiencing unnecessary delays due to attitude of the parties and their Counsel is one of utter disappointment and outright condemnation. The position of this Court to matters of this nature is in agreement with the admonition of UWAIS, CJN (as he then was) in the case of CAPTAIN E.C.C. AMADI VS. N.N.P.C. (2000) 6 SCNJ at p. 20 where the erudite jurist was rather terse, when he said;

“…the ruling of the High Court was delivered on the 20th day of June, 1988. The Judgment in the Appeal against the ruling was delivered by the Court of Appeal on the 16th day of February, 1989. The final Judgment on the interlocutory appeal is delivered today by this court. It has thus taken thirteen years for the case to reach this stage.

With the success of the plaintiffs appeal before us the case is to be sent back to the High Court to be determined, hopefully, on its merits, after a delay of 13 years. Surely, this could have been avoided had it been that the point was taken in the course of the proceedings in the substantive claim to enable any aggrieved party to appeal on both the issue of jurisdiction and the judgment on the merit in the proceedings as the case might be.

I believe that Counsel owe it, as a duty, to the Court to help reduce the period of delay in determining cases in our Courts by avoiding unnecessary preliminary objections as the one here so that the adage; justice delayed is justice denied may cease to apply to the proceedings in our Courts.”

The implication for the parties in this appeal is that whichever way the Court’s judgment on the matter goes, it would still have to go before the High Court which is currently seised of the substantive matter. Already, a number of years have been lost on both sides when the parties decided on pursuing the issue of non-admissibility of a single document at the expense of a speedy trial and early conclusion of the substantive matter. It is hoped that wise counseling shall prevail presumably at the end of this judgment.

That having been said, the Appellants were Plaintiffs at the High Court of Imo State, holding at Nkwerre in Suit No. HON/8/2008 in which they claimed the following reliefs against the Respondents who were then the Defendants:

“(a) A Declaration that the Plaintiffs were entitled to the right of occupancy over the land situate and being at Ofeiyi Village, Umudi in Nkwerre Local Government Area shown verged blue on Plan No. GIKS/IMDO3/2008 attached to the statement of claim.

(b) N10,000,000.00 (Ten Million Naira) General damages for trespass against the 1st to 6th and 8th Defendants.

(c) An order of injunction restraining the 7th Defendant from alienating in any manner whatsoever the land in dispute or any part thereto either alone or in conjunction with anyone whatsoever inclusive of the 1st to 7th Defendants without the written consent of the plaintiffs.

(d) An order of perpetual injunction restraining the 1st and 6th Defendants and the 8th Defendant, their servants, agents, privies and otherwise from trespassing on the land in dispute.

The action was instituted and prosecuted in a representative capacity up to a point, this being an interlocutory appeal. The land in dispute is called:

“Okpulo Ofeiyi”, otherwise known as “Ala Okpulo” by the Appellants and is said to stretch from Onu Nwankwo to Onugbugo which forms the boundary between Ofeiyi and Dikenafai in Ideato South Local Government Area of Imo State. The Appellants claim to have inherited this stretch of land from their ancestors from time immemorial in accordance with Umudi native laws and customs.