•
Land
dispute decided in Plaintiffs
favour in original Native
Tribunal, in defendant's favour
in State Council, and in
Plaintiff's favour in Provincial
Commissioner's Court.
Held: The
Provincial Commissioner's Court
was wrong to allow plaintiff to
set out a case entirely
different from that set up in
the Courts below. Appeal allowed
and judgment of State Council
restored.
There is no
need to set out the facts.
K. A.
Bossman for Appellants.
C. S.
Acolatse for Respondent.
The following
joint judgment was delivered :-
KINGDON, C.J.,
NIGERIA, PETRIDES, c.J., GOLD
COAST, AND YATES, J.
In this case
the plaintiff sued the
defendants in the Omanhene's
Tribunal of Borada Buem State,
the claim being as follows :-
•• Plaintiff
claims from the Defendants
reasonable cause why Defendants
got to sell Plaintiff's land
known as Lefweba inherited
customarily after the
Defendant's immigration to New
Ayoma. The present boundary with
the Defendants being the
road-cleaning limit, New Ayoma
and Old Ayoma Road a place known
as Leyuoso."
The
defendants pleaded" not liable,"
and, after hearing the parties
and their witnesses, and sending
a deputation to view the land,
the Tribunal gave judgment for
the plaintiff against the
defendants, finding " that the
place near the town has been
wrongly sold by defendants. That
the place sold should be left to
be used by him and his subjects
Old Ayoma to farm on." No
reasons are given for this
decision and no specific
findings of fact are recorded.
The defendants appealed to the
State Council of Buem, which,
after giving reasons, allowed
the appeal, recording its
opinion that " appellant has
right to sell that land at Old
Ayoma which is his property."
The plaintiff thereupon appealed
to the Court of the Provincial
Commissioner, Eastern Province,
which after hearing both parties
and taking fresh evidence from
the plaintiff only, set aside
the judgment of the State
Council and restored the
judgment of the Omanhene's
Tribunal, declaring " the land
to be family land and vested in
both parties, and that the sale
of the land near Old Ayoma was
not in accordance with custom."
• The difference of opinion
between the State Council and
the Provincial Commissioner is
accounted for entirely by their
different conception of the
plaintiff's case. The State
Council regarded the plaintiff
as claiming that, though the
land sold had once belonged to
defendants, defendants by moving
to New Ayoma had abandoned it
and it had reverted to and
become the property of
plaintiff. The Provincial
Commissioner on the other hand
treated the case as though the
plaintiff claimed that the land
was family land and as such
vested in both parties, neither
having the right to sell. We are
of opinion that the view which
the State Council took was
correct in regard to the case as
presented to them and to the
Omanhene's Tribunal, and that
the Provincial Commissioner was
wrong to allow the plaintiff to
make out a new and different
case in his Court.
Although too
much attention need not be paid
to the actual form of a writ in
a Native Tribunal when the
issues between the parties and
the relief claimed are clea.r,
neverthelt'!ss when views
differ, the first thing to look
at is the writ and then the
cases made out by the respective
parties. An examination of the
writ in this case shows that
there is not a suggestion of the
plaintiff and defendant's owning
land jointly as family land, on
the contrary the contention is
clearly that the land is
plaintiff's own " inherited"
after defendants had left it,
and there is a mention of a
"boundary" between the
respective parties' land. In
other words the writ exactly
bears out the State Council's
view of the claim. And when the
proceedings before the
Omanhene's Tribunal are examined
the correctness of the view is
even more clearly demonstrated.
For though in one place
plaintiff answers " yes" to the
question whether the lands under
Old A yoma belonged to plaintiff
and defendants jointly, and at
another place he says, " each of
us have no right to put any land
into sale," the references
bearing out the contrary view
are numerous, in fact they run
through the whole case. He says,
" Myself and def~ndants were the
two principal families staying
at this place Old Ayoma and as
they removed down and left me
there only one of the families
and its subjects are keeping Old
Ayoma." Surely this must mean
that the contention is that the
two families were separate, and
when defendants moved away
plaintiff became owner of the
whole area. Moreover, as the
State Council pointed out, the
plaintiff was forced to admit
specifically that each party had
the right to sell his own land.
He was also forced to admit that
a portion of land had actually
been sold by a member of his
family. The plaintiff's case was
in fact disproved out of his own
mouth. The State Council were
clearly satisfied that
defendants had not lost their
land by moving away from it, and
on this point the Provincial
Commissioner agrees. In the
absence of any reason given for
the decision of the Omanhene's
Tribunal and in view of the very
good reasons given by the State
Council we have no hesitation in
upholding the State Council's
view of the case as presented up
to the time it left them.
As
already stated we think it was
wrong that the plaintiff, after
attempting to make out the case
he did in the Native Tribunal,
should be allowed to turn round
completely in the Provincial
Commissioner's Court and make
out a different case, viz. that
the parties were all members of
one family and all their land
was communal family land so that
neither party could sell any, at
any rate without the
permission of the head of the
family. The administration of
Justice becomes impossible if a
plaintiff can. try to make out
one case in the trial Court and
failing to do so, eat his own
words, and succeed on
inconsistent contentions in the
Appeal Court.
For these
reasons the appeal is allowed,
the judgment of the Provincial
Commissioner's Court is set
aside, and the judgment of the
State Council is restored. The
appellants are awarded costs in
his Court assessed at £22 7s.
3d. and in the Provincial
Commissioner's Court to be
taxed.