NGMATI v. ADETSIA & ORS.
1959
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- OLLENNU J
Areas of Law
- Trespass
- Land Boundary Disputes
- Customary Land Ownership
1959
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The case revolves around a land dispute between the plaintiff, a subject of the Yilo Krobo Stool, and the defendants, who claim the land under the Manya Krobo Stool. The court found in favor of the plaintiff, confirming that his ancestors had farmed the disputed land and declaring the land as the plaintiff's ancestral property. The court awarded damages for trespass and dismissed claims from the 2nd co-defendant, who lacked authorization to represent his family in the suit.
JUDGMENT OF OLLENNU J.
(His lordship stated the history of the matter, and continued:-)
The evidence led by the plaintiff and his witnesses was that about 200 years ago, while the Krobos were still living on the Krobo Hill, his ancestors farmed a portion of the land round about that hill. This was not challenged by the defendants or by the 1st co-defendant. They appeared not to know whether or not the plaintiff’s family owned a portion of the Okwenya lands, which form part of the lands in the plains round and about the hill. A very feeble attempt was made by the 2nd co-defendant to challenge the plaintiff’s evidence as to his ancestors’ acquisition of the land.
What the defendants and the 1st co-defendant say is that the whole of the land at Okwenya belong to the Konor of Manya Krobo, and that the plaintiff’s ancestors could not have farmed that land to acquire title to the same, they being Yilo and not Menya Krobo subjects.
[p.325]
The implication of the tradition as to the mode of acquisition of the lands, is that the boundary between the lands of the two Stools must be identical with the boundary between the farms of subjects of one Stool farming from one direction, and the farms of subjects of the other Stool farming from the opposite direction to meet the former. The situation was summarised by the 1st co-defendant (Chief Sackitey) in his answers to the Court, as follows:-
" Both Yilo Krobos and Manya Krobos were occupying the Krobo Hill before they were driven down to the plains. The two Krobos separated when they came down from the hill.
The two peoples lived separately on the hill, not as one community. Both the Manya Krobo people and Yilo Krobo people were farming communities, and their subjects farmed the land round about the hill.
Q. According to customs what would happen to lands which each person farmed in those days after the death of that man who farmed it?
A. They would become the property of the descendants of the person who farmed it originally.
" Unoccupied land which is round about an area which a Stool settles upon, and which the subjects of the Stool cultivate, comes to be regarded as property of the Stool. But the portion which any one so farmed also remains ancestral property for his descendant. Both the Yilos and Manyas got to the land by migration, and found it unoccupied by any other tribe. From the way the two Krobo communities lived and farmed the area, the only way in which a boundary between lands of their Paramou