ABDILMASIH v. AMARH

JUDGMENT OF APALOO J.S.C.

On 19 February 1957, a man called Adolphus Emmanuel Cogo Naih of Accra, conveyed to the plaintiff, a piece of land said to be situate at Farnofah, North Adabraka, Accra, in consideration of the sum of £G400 or ¢800.00. That land was said to be bounded on the north by the property of a Mr. R. B. Okai on the south by the vendor's land on the east and west by Kwame Nkrumah Road and Nsawam Road respectively. To the deed was attached a site plan which gives the dimensions of the land as 200 feet on the north and south and 50 feet on the east and west respectively. It is this land that is the subject-matter of the present suit.

Just over a year later, the self-same vendor, again by deed, conveyed to the plaintiff an area just south of the land conveyed by the 1957 [p.417] document for a like estate in consideration of a further sum of £G400. The result of these two assurances, was that the plaintiff became seised of an area of land measuring 200 feet on the north and south and 100 feet on the east and west. The right of his vendor to grant him these two plots of land was not questioned in these proceedings. Indeed the plaintiff's vendor was able to show a root of title dating back to 1919. It commenced with a deed of gift executed in favour of a Mr. Samuel Abotchie Dsane by the then Korle priest on 28 January 1919 of an area 200 feet by 200 feet. The latter appeared to have died intestate and on 14 December 1937, a Joseph Allotey as the lawful representative of the intestate's family, conveyed the plot to Erastus John Ashrifie and the aforesaid Adolphus Emmanuel Gogo Naih jointly.

Ashrifie died on 17 July 1954 intestate and Gogo Naih succeeded him in accordance with custom and in that capacity and in his own right made the two conveyances of 1957 and 1958. Although the evidence shows that the plaintiff entered into possession of these two plots, his possession has not always been peaceful. But the plaintiff's occupation of the land antedates the two grants made to him by Gogo Naih. The reason for this is the familiar one that Gogo Naih was his second vendor. The plaintiff bought the land at first from a Mr. Henry Golightly in 1946 and on 15 June of that year, the latter executed a conveyance in his favour. Golightly himself obtained his grant from the Otupai stool. This stool was to be adjudged five years later to have no interest in the land and to be incapable of making any valid grant of it. The title which Golightly purported t