Okechukwu Amadi & Ors v. Chukwuemeka Thankgod Wokem & Ors (2025)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report – SUPREME COURT

HABEEB ADEWALE OLUMUYIWA ABIRU, JSC (Delivering the leading judgment)

This appeal is against the judgment of the Court of Appeal sitting in its Port Harcourt Division and delivered on the 19th of February, 2016 in appeal No. CA/PH/516/2014, and which judgment affirmed the decision of the High Court of Rivers State contained in a judgment delivered in suit No IHC/1952/2001 on the 3rd of March, 2014.

The respondents were the claimants in the High Court and they commenced the action against the appellants claiming for:

i. A declaration that the respondents are entitled to the Rights of Occupancy in respect of and over the piece of land along Port Harcourt/Elele Road, known as Isi-Ezi land, and covered by Deed of Conveyance (Grant) dated 15th of June, 1964, made by Joseph Basam Wokem and registered as No. 3 at page 3 in volume 393 in the Lands Registry, Enugu, within the jurisdiction of this court.

ii. An order of this honourable court granting possession of the land to the respondents.

iii. N2 million only as general damages for trespass.

iv. An order of perpetual injunction restraining the appellants by themselves, servants, agents and/or privies from further acts of trespass.

The respondents described themselves as the children of Late Pa Joseph Basam Wokem Umuninyah family of Elele Town and the first to the sixth appellants as farmers and members of the Omuenyimah family of Elele Town and the eight appellants as businessmen.

The Respondents gave the particulars of the land, and they said that it was particularly more described in the Deed of Conveyance (Grant) dated the 15th of June, 1964 and was the original property of late Pa. Joseph Basam Wokem, who deforested the land and granted the land to them through the second respondent.

It was their case that in the right of ownership and possession, they farmed on the land planting different cash crops and economic trees thereon and they sold portions of the land to several persons, including the portion upon which a filling station was built, without let or hindrance from anyone.

It was the case of the respondents that sometime in 2009, Nyeoha Samuel Hekerem, the eldest member of the appellants’ family, challenged one of their assignees on the land, Dr. Solomon Enyindah, who was building thereon, claiming that the land belonged to the appellants’ family.

It was their case that Nyeoha Samuel Hekerem dragged their family before the Elele Council of Chiefs known as Oha Omenele Red Cap Chiefs of Elele Town for arbitration to determine the true ownership of the land that the council ruled in their favour on the 17th of August, 2009.

It was their case that sometime earlier, the appellants invaded the land and attacked and beat up their workers on the undeveloped portions of the land, seized their working tools and chased them out of the land. It was their case that the appellants destroyed their cash crops and economic trees on the land and commenced the erection of structures and have also been harassing their assignees on the land, extracting monies from them.

The appellants denied the case of the respondents and it was their case that the parcel of land in dispute belonged to their family and that it was part of the vast arable land that was deforested by their progenitor many years ago and which had devolved from generation to generation until the first to the sixth appellants.