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October 14, 1963
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
JUDGMENT OF APALOO J.
In this action, the plaintiff claims a declaration of title to a cocoa farm said to be situate at a place called Nyebiammoawo on Keniago stool land, damages for trespass and an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants from dealing with the said farm.
The plaintiff, who I should judge to be in his late sixties is a native of Domi, Keniago. He is educated and between 1925-1950 lived away from home. He must have been employed in some sort of clerical job either at Bekwai or Kumasi. The Abotendomhene of Keniago, Kwame Yamoah, said he returned home with a deficit and settled down to making farms. I am not able from the evidence to form anything like a reliable picture of Keniago. About one thing, however, I am certain, namely, educated persons are a rarity. In fact Nana Yamoah said, "We have no clerks in Keniago." I think that is a little exaggerated but it is plain to my mind that educated persons are extremely hard to come by in that town.
The plaintiff is somehow connected with the Keniago stool. I prefer the evidence that he is a royal of the paramount Keniago stool not merely as the defence suggested, the Krontihene stool. Nana Owusu Afriyie the present Keniagohene admitted that the plaintiff at one time contested for the stool and lost. He would not have done so if he were not a royal of that stool and considered himself eligible to occupy it. The plaintiff says that he was employed as a stool clerk by Nana Yaw Barimah in 1950 and that he worked in this capacity without remuneration for a period of nine years. He says the chief said as he was one of the royals of the stool, he should sacrifice for it. In about 1959, Nana Barimah took ill and in order to find time to receive medical treatment, he abdicated. He was succeeded on the stool by one Kofi Agyei whose stool name is Nana Kwame Yamoah Ababio. The evidence shows that at an unspecified date in 1959, the stool elders met to render an account of the stool properties and formally hand them over to the new chief. According to the plaintiff, at this meeting, he told the elders that he had served the stool for nine years without remuneration and that there was a stool cocoa farm which had almost become a farmstead. He requested that a gift of the farm be made to him in recognition of his devoted services to the stool. The plaintiff testified that the elders unanimously agreed and he acknowledged the gift by the payment of a customary aseda. Thereafter the plaintiff s
AI Generated Summary
Apaloo J resolved a dispute over a cocoa farm at Nyebiammoawo on Keniago stool land. The plaintiff, an elderly, educated native of Domi and a royal of the paramount Keniago stool, served as stool clerk to Nana Yaw Barimah without pay from 1950 to 1959. In 1959, at an elders’ meeting to hand over stool properties to the new chief, Nana Kwame Yamoah Ababio (Kofi Agyei), the elders unanimously gifted the farm to the plaintiff in recognition of his service; he paid customary aseda and entered possession, harvesting for two seasons. After Nana Yamoah Ababio’s detention under the Preventive Detention Act, the first defendant became Keniagohene and, asserting the plaintiff was a caretaker, seized cocoa and sought to remove him. The court rejected the caretaker narrative, credited the evidence of witness Yaw Kubi, held that a public customary gift and its acceptance passed title and was irrevocable, declared the plaintiff owner, awarded £G75 damages for trespass, granted a perpetual injunction, and assessed costs at £G35.