IN RE ADJANCOTE ACQUISITION; KLU v. AGYEMANG II

JUDGMENT OF WIREDU J.A.

The dispute in this case is about title to a piece of land described by the name Adjancote. This land was acquired some time ago by the Government of Ghana for the purpose of building a television station for the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation.

[p.855]

The present appeal before us is the result of the determination by the lands tribunal of rival claims for monetary compensation arising out of the said acquisition submitted to the government by three claimants each claiming to own the acquired area.

The lands tribunal in its judgment dated 26 February 1976, expressed satisfaction with the case presented by and on behalf of the first claimant and found for him, rejecting the cases of the second and third claimants.

The three claimants before the lands tribunal were the Berekusu stool as the first claimant; the Nuumo Nmashi family of Teshie comprising the Krobo, Klu and the Agbawe quarters as the second claimant, and the Nii Dowuona family of Osu as the third claimant.

Both the second and third claimants appealed from the judgment in favour of the first claimant but the third claimant failed to prosecute his appeal having withdrawn his application for variation of the judgment.

For the purpose of easy identification, the two parties to this appeal would simply be referred to as the respondent (the first claimant) and the appellant (the second claimant).

One main ground of appeal was originally filed by the appellant who expressed an intention to file additional grounds later. This ground reads: "(a) The judgment is against the weight of evidence." Later two additional grounds of appeal were filed on his behalf. These read:

"(1) The trial court erred in preferring the traditional evidence of the first claimant to the traditional evidence of the second claimant without assigning reasons therefor.

(2) The trial court erred in finding that `despite all these tribal wars, the first claimant's ancestors held tenaciously to the top of the hill' without regard to facts in recent years as established by the evidence."

It must be mentioned in passing that when the appeal first came before us an objection was taken on behalf of the respondent affecting its propriety but we became satisfied that the appeal was properly before this court after hearing learned counsel for the appellant on the objection. We therefore acceded to an application for leave by learned counsel for the respondent to withdraw the objection. Arguments before us