Umaru Kachalla Sembe & Ors V. Jauro Dovo Pitti (2016)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report – COURT OF APPEAL

SAIDU TANKO HUSAINI, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment)

The Respondent as Plaintiff at the High court of Justice, Taraba State instituted action by way of the Writ of Summons taken out and filed on the 24th June, 2011. By his Statement of claim filed on 5th August, 2011, he claimed all the reliefs listed at paragraph 34 (a)- (e), that is to say: (a) an order for declaration of title to the land in dispute, (b) an order of declaration that the defendants are trespassers on the Plaintiffs lands by their acts of entry, cultivating and planting on same; (c) an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants by themselves, their privies or any person lying (sic) claim on the land in dispute from further acts of trespass; (d) the sum of N500, 000. 00 as general damages against the defendants for trespass; (e) Cost of filing and prosecution.Razors & Shavers

Defendants denied this claim before the trial Court. They are the appellants in this Court. At the commencement of hearing at the trial high Court, the respondent led evidence of 4 (four) witnesses and closed his case having tendered 2 (two) documents which the trial Court admitted and

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marked Exhibit P1 and P2. The Appellants similarly led evidence in defence and closed their case after calling 4 (four) witnesses on 23rd March, 2013.

?From the pleadings and evidence on record in this case on appeal, the land in dispute forms part of the large expanse of land originally allocated to the then Emir of Muri, Alhaji Abba Tukur by the 1st Appellant?s Uncle Mashinbeg Kalla who at that time was the Village Head of Wuro Sembe where the land in dispute is also located. Mashinbeg Kalla had sought the approval of the various land owners in the village before allocating their land to the Emir who put the land to use by cultivating it for a few years before his death.

With the demise of Alh. Abba Tukur, the man by name called Alhaji Abubakar Ibrahim (Sarkin Ayuka) began to lay claim to that same large expanse of land including the piece of land in dispute in this current case. The claim of Alhaji Abubakar Ibrahim led to the suit being instituted against him at the High Court of Taraba State by the original land owners numbering 22(twenty two) of them vide Suit No. TRSJ/1/97 in which Judgment was given in their favour at Taraba State High Court

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on the 21st June, 2001. Mading Ajiya is one of the beneficiaries in the said Judgment. He is the 5th Plaintiff in Suit No. TRSJ/1/97.

Dissatisfied with the outcome of the decision or Judgment in Suit NO. TRSJ/1/97, the defendant i.e Alhaji Abubakar Ibrahim lodged appeal to this Court against that Judgment. But by a twist of events, the appeal was withdrawn by reason of the parties to that appeal reaching an amicable settlement wherein a memorandum of settlement was prepared and endorsed by parties on both sides.

The case of the respondent in the instant case on appeal, is that he is the beneficiary of the Judgment in Suit No. TRSJ/1/97 through one Mading Ajiya who was the 5th Plaintiff in that case. He claimed that he is the rightful owner of the portion of the land declared to Mading Ajiya. He claimed that the portion of land declared for Mading Ajiya was given to him by his (respondent) father.

?The case for the appellant on the other hand is that the land in dispute belongs to the 1st Appellant who came by that land through inheritance and that the land forms part of the land declared to him i.e the 1st appellant as the 1st Plaintiff in Suit

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No. TRSJ/1/97.