ATTAH v. LAGOS
1960
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- ADUMUA-BOSSMAN, J
Areas of Law
- Property and Real Estate Law
- Civil Procedure
- Tort Law
1960
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The case involved an appeal from a decision of the Native Court B concerning land that was originally cultivated by the defendant's father. Following litigation in 1939, the Andoe Stool earned rights to this land, which had been abandoned for ten years. The defendant sought reclamation of his father's farms from the Adontihene but was denied as the land was previously allocated to a new tenant in 1949. The trial court's ruling against the plaintiff was overturned, and the appeal was allowed. Judgment for the plaintiff was entered, including dismissal of the defendant's damages claim. The decision emphasizes principles of abandonment, customary law, and valid reallocation of land.
JUDGMENT OF ADUMUA-BOSSMAN J.
In this appeal form a decision of the Native Court “B” of the Asin Local Council, the judgment appealed from does not seem to me to be capable of support. That judgment did not take any account of the admitted fact that when the area in dispute was alleged to have been cultivated originally by Kojo Alata, defendant's father (now deceased), that original cultivation was not in right or title of the Andoe Stool at all, but of a woman cal led Adwua Brenua of Anomaboe. It follows, therefore, that so far as the Andoe Stool is concerned, it never gave any right of occupation or possession of that disputed area, or the adjoining or any other area, to the defendant's late father.
When, therefore, as the result of litigation between the Andoe Stool and Kojo Alata's grantor, a decision was given against her, and a declaration of ownership made in favour of the Andoe Stool, it is clear that Kojo Alata and his successors had no inherent right as against the Andoe Stool to the possession or the usufruct of the area cultivated by him, except such as might be obtained by agreement with the Stool. At that time, that is, when title to the land was declared to be in the Andoe Stool, if Kojo Alata was then in de facto occupation and possession of the whole area cultivated by him, the Andoe Stool could not dispossess him of the areas which he was then occupying without first giving him an opportunity to attorn tenant to the Stool, and to agree to occupy on such customary terms as the Stool might impose. See Ababio II v. Nsemfoo (12 W.A.C.A. 127). The admitted position, however, was that (because Kojo Alata either was then dead, or died shortly after the litigation) the areas which he had cultivated prior to the litigation were left abandoned for a considerable length of time.
The defendant's own evidence was as follows:—
"I arrived from Nigeria about six years ago and heard from authentic source that my father owned cocoa farm on a portion of Adontihene's land at Akyisan. Recently about five months ago (5 months) I approached the Adontihene of Andoe with a request for return of my late father's cocoa farms on his land."
According to the evidence of the Adontihene Efilfa X, first witness for the plaintiff and representative of the Andoe Stool, the litigation with Adwua Brenua resulting in the decision in favour of his Stool took place about twenty years ago, that is, in about 1939. The disputed land remained abandoned for a long period of ten