NANA ESUMAN KWASAMA II v. ENOCK OPOKU
November 15, 2022
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- HIS LORDSHIP JUSTICE JOHN BOSCO NABARESE
Areas of Law
- Property and Real Estate Law
- Contract Law
- Evidence Law
- Civil Procedure
November 15, 2022
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The High Court, per Justice John Bosco Nabarese, upheld the Kwasama Stools claims over cocoa farmlands at One Pound, finding the defendants late father, Opanyin Kwame Opoku, was a tenant farmer under abusa tenancy, not a customary freeholder. The gazetted chief of Kwasama asserted that his predecessor, Nana Antwi Kwasama II, had granted land to tenant farmers on abusa terms, requiring a onethird share of produce. After 2009, the chief reviewed obligations to GH250 per acre; the defendant refused to pay and allegedly encouraged others to resist. The court rejected defenses of capacity, illegality, and limitation, emphasizing that the stool occupant may sue on behalf of the stool; continuous compliance with abusa terms means time does not run; and statutory farm rents are distinct from contractual abusa shares. The court ordered payment of abusa proceeds from January 2018, issued a perpetual injunction against instigation, and awarded costs of GH215,000.
JUDGEMENT
The plaintiff sued the defendant in this Court claiming the following reliefs:
a. A declaration that the cocoa farmlands of the Defendant situate, lying and being at a
place called “One Pound” measuring approximately 120 acres square, which shares
boundary with the cocoa farmlands of Opanyin Kramo in the South-West, Maame
Adwoa Okra in the North, OPanyin Appiah Kubi’s in the East are part and parcel of
the Kwasama Stool lands.
b. An order directed at the Defendant to pay to the plaintiff an amount of GH₵
54,000.00 being the total of one-third portion of all proceeds from the Defendant’s
farmland on abusa tenancy agreement at GH₵ 50.00 per acre of the Defendant’s
cocoa farm for the past 9 years.
c. An order directed at the defendant to pay his one-third portion of all proceeds from
his cocoa farmlands on the Kwasama Stool Lands per the abusa tenancy agreement to
the plaintiff forthwith.
d. An order of perpetual injunction restraining the Defendant, his agents, servants,
workers, assigns, privies and all those claiming through him from instigating other
tenant farmers on Kwasama Stool Lands from paying their one-third portion of the
abusa tenancy to the plaintiff.
e. Any order of costs including legal fees.
In support of the reliefs being sought against the defendant, the plaintiff contended in
his statement of claim that he is the gazetted chief of Kwasama Stool in the Central
Region of the Republic of Ghana. According to him, his predecessor, Nana Antwi
Kwasama II granted a portion of the Kwasama Stool lands to some persons, including
the father of the defendant by name Opanyin Kwame Opoku, for the purpose of cocoa
plantation farming on the basis of “Abusa Tenancy” agreement. The plaintiff said the
said land measuring approximately 120 acres square, shares boundary with the cocoa
farmlands of Opanyin Kramo in the South-West, Maame Adwoa Okra in the North and
Opanyin Appiah Kubi in the East. The plaintiff maintained that as a result of the Abusa
tenancy agreement, the tenant farmers on the Kwasama Stool lands were to pay onethird of the proceeds of their harvest of the cocoa farms to the custodian of the stool. He
stated that the defendant’s father complied with the terms of the tenancy agreement
and paid the one-third of all proceeds from his cocoa plantation to his predecessor until
the death of defendant’s father.
The plaintiff pleaded that, after the death of defendant’s father, Opanyin Kwame
Opoku, the defenda