Clay Industries (Nigeria) Ltd. Vs Adeleye Aina & Ors (1997)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

IGUH, J.S.C.

This is an appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division, which has on the 25th day of January, 1989 allowed the appeal by the plaintiffs from the decision of Ajose Adeogun. J. sitting at Ikeja in the High Court of Justice, Lagos State.

The plaintiffs who were partners, trading under the name and style of Idland Contract and Supply Company, had on the 17th day of September, 1970 instituted an action against the defendant claiming as follows-

“(a) A declaration of Title to all that piece or parcel of land situate, lying and being at Oregun Road, Morekete Village, Ikeja Division of Lagos State of Nigeria;

(b) Injunction restraining the defendant their servants and/or agents against further acts of trespass on the said land and

(c) Two Hundred Pound (‘a3200) damages for the said acts of trespass.”

Pleadings were ordered in the suit and were duly settled, filed and exchanged. At the subsequent trial: both parties testified on their own behalf and called witnesses.

The case for the plaintiffs as pleaded before the trial court is that all four of them are partners doing business under the name and style of Idland Contract and Supply Company. This business name was duly registered in 1962 under the Registration of Business Names Act, 1961. The land in dispute situate at Oregun village, Ikeja in Lagos State was bought by them from the original owners, the Ajose family in 1963.

This is evidenced by the Deed of Conveyance, Exhibit P2, dated the 31st October, 1963. They went into possession of the land immediately thereafter. They also engaged labourers and caretakers who cultivated the land and claimed it to be his own. He brought a quasi-criminal action, Exhibit P3, against the 3rd plaintiff in respect of the land which action was dismissed by the lkeja Chief Magistrate’s Court. This was on the ground of want of jurisdiction as the issue of title to land was therein raised in the proceedings. They claimed that Chief T.A. Doherty wrongfully sold part of the said land to Cappa and Dalberto Ltd. on the 1st day of August 1967 as per the registered conveyance, Exhibit P4. Cappa and Dalberto Ltd. in turn resold the land to the defendant on the 22nd day of September, 1967 as per the conveyance, Exhibit P5.

They claimed that the defendant trespassed on the land and laid claim thereto, hence this action. Akanbi Ajose, one of the descendants of the original owner of the land testified for the plaintiffs at the hearing. He admitted under cross-examination that it was a portion of the land sold to Doherty that was later resold to one Bisiriyu Akintola by some members of his faction of the Ajose family.

On the other hand, the case of the defendant, as pleaded, is that it lawfully entered and is in lawful possession of the land in dispute. This is by virtue of Exhibit P4 whereby the land was sold by the late Chief T.A.Doherty to Cappa and Dalberto Ltd. By Exhibit P5,Cappa and Dalberto in turn resold the land to the defendant in 1967. It stressed that Chief T.A. Doherty had by himself and his agents been in undisturbed continuous possession of the land in dispute, having bought a more extensive piece or parcel of land within which situate the land in dispute from the Ajose family. They explained that the said Ajose family owned a much larger area of farmland including the land in dispute under native law and custom through one Taiwo Ijon, their great grand father who died many years ago.

He was survived by several children. One of them, Kusemi, was the father of Ajose whose children were known as the Ajose family. It was the said Ajose family who made an absolute out and out sale of a large tract of their family land, including the land in dispute, to the late Chief T.A.Doherty.

The defendant further averred that title of the late T.A.Doheny to the land sold to him and including the land in dispute by the Ajose family was confirmed by the then High Court of Western Nigeria, holden at lkeja, in suit No. HK/14/62, Exhibit D1 between Bisiriyu Akintola as plaintiff and Clay Industry (Nigeria) Ltd. and T.A. Doheny as defendants. This High Court judgment in Exhibit DI was affirmed by this court in Exhibit D3. The defendant claims that it has been in possession of the said land in dispute without any interference from anyone whatever.

At the conclusion of hearing the learned trial Judge, Ajose-Adeogun J, after a careful evaluation of the evidence on the 31st October, 1977 found for the defendant and dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims. He noted that both parties to the dispute claimed to have derived their respective foot of title from the same radical owners, namely, the Ajose family. He considered both claims by the parties and came to the conclusion that the title of the defendants was better and preferable than that of the plaintiffs.