AHENKORA II AND ANOTHER v. KUMAH AND OTHERS

JUDGMENT OF APALOO J.

In this action the first plaintiff who is the present occupant of the Asuboa stool, claims from the defendants various sums of money which he alleges to be due to his stool as customary cocoa tribute. The second plaintiff is the local council with jurisdiction over Asuboa and claims that it has been delegated power by the Administrator of Stool Lands acting under the Ashanti Stool Lands Act, 1958,1 to collect revenue on Asuboa stool lands and that it was entitled to join this action to protect its interest. Its status has been challenged but I shall deal with that aspect of the matter at a later stage.

Before I deal with the extensive and somewhat difficult points of law which have been argued in this case, it is necessary to resolve the disputed facts first. All the defendants have been sued as the elders of the stool of Muramura. The seventh defendant is in fact the present Odikro of that village. There is not a great deal of description of Muramura but it seems to be in origin a small farming settlement. In course of time, it seems to have grown into a fair sized village. Although there are said to be some strangers living there, the evidence shows that by far the greater majority of its citizens are Juabens whose ancestors settled there very late in the last century for the purpose of farming. The original settlement was said to have been made during the Asafu Adjaye war which was estimated to be in 1892. The land on which the village was founded belongs to the Asuboa stool. Although it was averred in paragraph 1 of the statement of defence that the land belonged to the Juaben stool, that was not pressed at the trial. The evidence of the defendants themselves proceeded on the footing that the land does not belong to the Juaben stool of which they are admittedly subjects.

It is common ground that the original agreement which the stool of Asuboa made with the defendants' predecessors was that each person was to pay by way of tribute one load of cocoa per season. Both the plaintiff and the defendants agreed that that agreement was subsequently varied. What became the varied agreement has been the subject of fierce controversy.

It is necessary at this stage to state that the first, second and fifth defendants admit liability to the plaintiffs and no sort of issue was joined between these defendants and the plaintiff stool. The other defendants dispute liability and the long bitter battle which was waged in this case, raged between