DARKEH AND ANOTHER v. LARTEY

JUDGMENT OF AKUFO-ADDO J.S.C.

The respondent (hereinafter referred to as the plaintiff) brought an action in the High Court, Accra, against the appellant (hereinafter referred to as the defendant) claiming a declaration of ownership of a piece of land situate at Opete Kpakpo (Abossey Okai), Accra, the ownership of which she claimed to have acquired by a deed of conveyance dated the 10th August, 1956, and executed in her favour by the Akumajay stool of Accra represented by Nii Ayikai III, the Mantse of Akumajay. She also claimed damages for trespass and recovery of possession. The description of the land as contained in the deed of conveyance was set out in the plaintiff's statement of claim.

The plaintiff's case was that the deed of conveyance was executed after the elders of the Akumajay stool and one Blankson, a surveyor to the stool, had gone on to the land with her and demarcated two plots of land for her, and that the two plots of land were then unoccupied. Upon the execution of the deed of conveyance she appointed the surveyor Blankson her caretaker and instructed him to construct for her a corrugated zinc building of two rooms on one of the plots which is the subject-matter of the action from which this appeal has arisen. It was this man Blankson who assisted her in the negotiations for the purchase of the land. The evidence shows the existence of a corrugated zinc building on the land at the time the action was brought. The plaintiff alleged further that subsequent to the construction of the zinc building the defendant wrongfully entered upon the land and assembled thereon building materials in preparation for the construction of a building.

[p.364]

The defendant claims to be the rightful owner of the land by virtue of a sale thereof to him by one Okai Abosse, a grandson of the late Nii Abosse Okai who as acting Mantse of Akumajay granted the land to the said Okai Abosse. Okai Abosse was on his application joined in the suit as co-defendant, and in his evidence he produced a piece of "paper-writing" bearing date the 18th December, 1928 (tendered in evidence as exhibit 1), signed by the said Nii Abosse Okai and in which it was stated that Okai Abosse, a member of the Akumajay stool family, had been granted "a piece or parcel of land situate lying and being at Obete-Kpakpo Abossey Okai, Accra, measuring 280 feet by 150 feet for natural love and affection" in accordance with customary law. There is no further description of the land the subject-