Samuel Maduka Akamnonu & Anor V. Sunday Ibenye (2016)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report – COURT OF APPEAL

EMMANUEL AKOMAYE AGIM, J.C.A.(Delivering the Leading Judgment)

On 11-4-2008, the Anambra State High Court, sitting at Ogidi in Idemili Judicial division, rendered judgment in Suit No. HID/141/99 holding that the plaintiff?s claim succeeds and ordering that the defendants were restrained by themselves, their agents, servants and privies from further entry into the land in dispute or in any manner whatsoever interfering with the plaintiff?s possession of the land in dispute.

Dissatisfied with this judgment, the defendants on 12-5-2008 commenced this appeal No. CA/E/376/2008 by filing a notice of appeal containing eight grounds for the appeal.

Both sides filed, exchanged and adopted their respective briefs, namely. The amended appellants? brief and respondent?s brief.

The amended appellants? brief raised the following issues for determination-

1. ?Whether the learned trial judge was right when he held that the defendants/appellants vendor had no title over the land in dispute and therefore the defendants/appellants acquired no title over same?
2. Whether the learned trial judge was right when he

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granted the plaintiff/respondent the order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants/appellants from further entering the land in dispute and committing further acts of trespass?

3. Was the learned trial judge right when he held that the land in dispute belonged to the plaintiff/respondent?
4. Whether the learned trial judge was right when he held that the Nrachi ceremony of the mother of the vendor of the defendants/appellants which was performed later after the death of the grandfather of the vendor of the defendants/appellants was not capable of reversing the inheritance of the father of plaintiff/respondent in 1940, of the land part of which is in dispute?
5. Whether the learned trial judge was right when he failed to evaluate or to properly evaluate and consider the evidence adduced before him by the parties?
6. Whether the learned trial judge was right when he held that the defendants/appellants vendor had no title to the land in dispute?
7. Was the learned trial judge right when he awarded the cost of N82,000.00 to the plaintiff/respondent?
8. Whether the judgment is against the weight of evidence

?The

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respondent?s brief raised the same issues for determination.

I will determine this appeal on the basis of the issues for determination in the appellant?s brief.

I will determine issues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 together as they all deal with the question of whether the trial Court rightly held that the appellants acquired no title in the land in dispute, as the said land belonged to the respondent and not to Chukwuwetalu Nwachukwu, the person that purportedly sold the land to the appellants.

I have calmly and carefully read all the arguments of both sides on the above issues. On the pleadings and evidence of both sides.the central factual issue in controversy was the lineage of the respondent and that of Chukwuwetalu Nwachukwu (the person from whom the appellants bought the land in dispute). The respondent maintained that his progenitor is Ejiofor whose son by his first wife Ugonna, named Ibenye begot Daniel Ekebor Ibenye who is the respondent?s father, that after the death of Ejiofor, his first wife Ugonna was remarried by one Anazodo from another kindred resulting in the birth of Nwachukwu Anazodo who in turn begot Richard

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