NENE AGGUDEY KUNTU & ANOTHER v. NOMO AGBOSO DOGBEDA & ORS

Baffour J.A:

Introduction

From the time of the customary arbitral forum of the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs, Dodowa came up with its award on the 29th of March, 2012, there had been at least three previous attempts to impeach the award before the commencement of this action at the court below. All the previous attempts woefully failed. The application purporting to have been launched under section 58 of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Act, 2010, Act 798 is the fourth attempt to set aside the arbitral award, albeit this time the claim being on the basis of fraud. We are being called upon to make a determination as to the admission of the suit by the court below to proceed beyond the preliminary legal objection raised for trial in the suit was rightly done or not. The Respondents/Appellant would be simply referred to as Appellant whilst the Applicants/Respondents/Respondents would be known throughout this ruling as Respondents.

Background

To fully appreciate the matter which is before us on appeal, it would be necessary to recount the antecedents that has transpired in connection with the rightful gate to choose a person to occupy the position of a Mankralo of the Ada Traditional area. The wrangling as to who became the next Mankralo of Ada Tradtional area became intense after the demise of Nene Agudey Kuntu III, the last acknowledged Mankralo in the year 2000. There appears to be at least six gates within Korgbor clan of Ada Traditional Council. And these are Kponkpo Gbedzam Gate, Adenyingbe Gate, Da Gate, Applausu Gate, Fiagbedu Gate and Abloakorm Gate. The appellant submitted for customary arbitration the determination of the issue as to the Gate that was entitled by tradition and custom to install a Mankralo over the Ada Traditional area. In the award of the arbitrators at the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs, they found that the Mankraloship belonged to two families of Dah’s descendants and that of Agudey Kuntu descendants. And on the basis of the system of inheritance among the Ada people being patrilineal, the system of ascension into the position of Mankraloship was to rotate between the descendants of Dah and Agudey Kuntu beginning with the faction of the Appellant to install a Mankralo. Based on that determination, the appellant was installed as the Mankralo with the stool name Nene Obitchere III.

Piqued by this determination, the award by the customary arbitration has not been allowed to rest. The first assault on the award