MRS MARGARET WINFUL v. MUSTAPHA DAUDA

My Lords, this is a routine land litigation between the parties. According to the Plaintiff (who is before us as Plaintiff/Appellant/Respondent) she acquired the subject plot of land which is situate at North-West Odorkor from the Asere Stool in 1987. The Stool, represented by Nii Nikoi Amontia IV, who, acting with the consent and concurrence of his principal elders issued her with an indenture which she later registered. She immediately took possession of the plot and constructed a building foundation on it. She had remained in possession until around November 2014 when the Defendant, (before us as Defendant/Respondent/Appellant) laid adverse claim to the plot and sought to take possession of it. In the result, she caused the arrest of the Defendant’s agent one Yusif Mohammed by the Anyaa police. When the police requested the agent to produce documents to back the claim of his principal, he could not.

Further, the Plaintiff claims to have conducted a search at the Lands Commission, Accra which showed a lease of the land to her in 1987 by her grantor. Claiming that the Defendant had wrongfully taken her plot and clandestinely developed same, she sought the following reliefs in the trial Court:

a. Declaration to all the piece and or parcel of land situate lying and being at North West Odorkor, Accra in the Greater Accra Region of the Republic of Ghana and bounded on the North-East by Lessor’s land measuring 130 feet more or less, on the North West by Lessor’s land measuring 110 feet more or less, on the SouthEast by proposed road measuring 110 feet more or less, on the South West by Lessor’s land measuring 130 feet more or less which piece or parcel covering an approximate area of 0.35 acre.

b. Perpetual injunction to restraining Defendant his agents, assigns and successors from entry onto the land or having anything to do with the land by way of conveyance or interference.

c. Recovery of possession

d. Damages for trespass.

e. Costs

The Defendant on the other claims the plot through the Charbukwei Family of Anyaa. According to him, it was his late father, Alhaji Mamoudu Issah Dawuda who in 1989, acquired the plot from the said family. The father in his lifetime exercised acts of possession by developing a five-bedroom foundation up to window level and an additional three chamber and hall building in which he put tenants. After the father’s death, there was an attempt by the caretaker to sell a