Madam Safuratu Salami & Ors. V. Sunmonu Eniola Oke (1987)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

KAWU, J.S.C. 

On the 6th day of July, 1987, I dismissed the appellants’ appeal to this Court. I then indicated that I would today, give reasons for my decision. I now give those reasons.

The appellants were defendants in suit No 1/368/73 instituted by the respondent in the former High Court of Justice, Western Nigeria, Ibadan Judicial Division, on the 31st of October, 1973. In the said suit, the respondent’s claims, as endorsed on the writ of summons, are as follows:-

“(1) Declaration of Title to that piece or parcel of land situate, lying and being at Orile Odo, Lagos Road, Ibadan, bounded on the first side by Oluokun family land on the second side by Alhaja Asia’s land, on the third side by Oke family land and Gbadamosi Onifade’s lands, and on the fourth side by Oke family land and Olawale’s lands.

(2) Forfeiture of the Customary tenancy of the Defendants on the said land.

(3) N15 arrears of Ishakole for 1971, 1972 and 1973.

(4) Injunction restraining the Defendants, their servants, agents, and those claiming through them from further entering the land in dispute.

Annual rental value of the land in dispute cannot be specified.”

Pleadings were ordered, filed and delivered. Each party also filed the plan of the land in dispute. The subject matter of the dispute between the parties is a large tract of land at Orile-Odo Village, situate along the Lagos/ Ibadan Road, Ibadan. At the trial each party gave evidence and called a number of witnesses in support of their respective claims.

Briefly, the respondent’s case was that during the reign of Iba Oluyole of Ibadan, his father, Oke, a hunter, acquired the land in dispute after he had successfully driven away the Egbas who were formerly occupying the land, The land so acquired was later known as Oke family land within which his father founded a village where he built a house. It was also his case that Oke used part of the land for farming and made grants of some portions of it to tenants who paid the traditional tributes – Ishakole, to him. Among his tenants, he claimed, were Bamidaro, Ige and Okele Modi, the ancestors of the defendants. The present dispute arose because some three years to the institution of this action, the defendants, who used to pay Ishakole to the respondent’s family as their ancestors had done, stopped doing so, claiming that the land in dispute belonged to them. The appellant’s case, on the other hand, was that during the reign of Are Latose, the land in dispute was acquired by an Army Commander called Suji who had driven away the Egbas from the land and who thereafter made grants of some portions of his holdings to several persons, including their ancestor Bamidaro. They claimed that the grant made to Bamidaro was an absolute one as he paid no tributes to Suji, his grantee.

At the conclusion of the hearing the learned trial Judge (Ola. Lajide, J.) carefully reviewed the totality of the evidence adduced by the parties, and on the 15th September, 1978, delivered a well considered judgment in which he allowed the plaintiffs claims in the following terms:-

“(1) A declaration that the plaintiff is the owner of that piece or parcel of land edged red including the parcel edged green on plan No. 197/74 drawn by S. Akin Ogunbiyi Licensed Surveyor and marked as Exhibit 3 in this case and therefore entitled to a right of occupancy as provided by the Land Use Decree, Decree No. 6 of 1978.

(2) An order of forfeiture of the interest or right of the defendants in the area verged green on the said plan.

(3) An injunction is hereby granted against the defendants restraining them, their servants, agents and all those claiming through them from entering the said area edged green on the said plan.”