Phillip Oladimeji And Anor V Madam Oshode And Anor (1968)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

COKER, J.S.C.

The appellants who were the plaintiffs in the High Court of Lagos, suit No. LD/556/64, had sued the respondents who were the defendants claiming:-

(a) Declaration of title to the piece or parcel of land situate, lying and being at Alan Road, Surulere, Yaba in the mainland of Lagos Property of the plain-tiff.

(b) £50 Special and General Damages for trespass and waste committed and is still being committed by the defendant by herself, her servants and/or agents on the plaintiffs’ land situate, lying and being at Alan Road, Surulere, Yaba in the mainland of Lagos.

PARTICULARS OF DAMAGES:

Special Damages:

Value of Crops and Palm Trees destroyed £25

General Damages         £25

____

£50

(c) Injunction to restrain the defendant, her servants and/or agents from further continuing the said act of trespass and waste.”

The first plaintiff is the personal representative of one Jacob Oyinloye Onipede or Jacob Oyinloye (deceased) and it is claimed on behalf of the plaintiffs that the late Jacob Oyinloye Onipede and the second plaintiff are the owners of the land the Area Of Law of this action, situate at Atan Road in Surulere in the suburb of Yaba on the mainland of Lagos. It was accepted by both sides that the land was part of a very large area of land belonging originally, according to Native Law and Custom, to the Oloto Chieftaincy Family. Both parties also agreed that Circa 1902 a parcel of land comprising the land in dispute in the present proceedings was granted by one Chief Eshugbayi Oloto on behalf of the Oloto Family to one Lawani Giwa, alias Lawani Atan. Up to this point both parties are agreed as to the history of the land in dispute: what happened subsequently is the cause of the present litigation. According to the plaintiffs’ Pleadings one Salu Adisa Shitta thereafter purchased the land and later sold it to them, i.e. the plaintiffs. That was in 1947.

When however in 1955 the children of Lawani Giwa challenged their title they re-purchased from those children by virtue of a conveyance dated the 30th March, 1955. They pleaded that like their predecessors in title they had always been in undisturbed possession of the land until some time in 1965 (in effect) when the defendants disturbed their possession and claimed the land. According to the defendants, on the other hand, the aforesaid Lawani Giwa some fifty years ago made a gift of the land in dispute to one Emmanuel Aderonmu who was his servant ‘for faithful and devoted services’ (see paragraph 8 of the Statement of Defence). Thereafter Aderonmu sold it to one Samuel Edwin Cole (1931) who later mortgaged the land to the Nigerian Loan and Mortgage Co. Ltd. and on failure of Cole to redeem, the Nigerian Loan and Mortgage Co. Ltd. in exercise of their statutory powers, sold the land by public auction to one John St. Matthew Daniel, now deceased whose personal representatives in 1956 sold the land to the second defendant. The first defendant is the wife of the second defendant and she has no other interest in this land.

At the trial, the plaintiffs gave evidence of the purchase of the land from Salu Adisa Shins by Jacob Oyinloye Onipede, (deceased) and the second plaintiff and of its subsequent repurchase by them from the children of Lawrence Atan in 1955 (see conveyance exhibit “D” dated the 30th March, 1955). The defendants’ case of the gift of the land by Lawani Atan to Emmanuel Aderonmu was put to the plaintiffs’ witnesses and it became obvious from the answers elicited from them that the defendants’ story of the gift was more probable than the plaintiffs’ case either of the sale by Lawani Atan to Salu Adisa Shirts, as pleaded by them or of the retention of the land by Lawani Atan himself as postulated by the resale of the land by his children.