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J U D G M E N T
PROF. T.M. OCRAN, J.S.C:-
This is an appeal from the unanimous decision of Judicial Committee of the National House of Chief, Kumasi, delivered on 8th July 2004.
THE FACTS AND ISSUES
The facts of the case, as laid out in the decision of the National House and the Statements of Case submitted by both sides to the controversy, may be summed up as follows.
As a result of a war between Juaben in Ashanti, and the rest of Ashanti, in or about 1875, the Juabenhene and some of his people migrated to the present Eastern Region, settled in the Koforidua area and created New Juaben. The land acquired by Nana Asafo Agyei, the Omanhene who led his people to New Juaben, included Suhyen, where some of his subjects had settled.
In or around 1915, a successor Omanhene of New Juaben, Nana Kwaku Boateng I, while on a tour of Suhyen, appointed an Odikro for the town, purportedly because of its strategic importance as the boundary between the Stool lands of New Juaben and Akyem. This first Odikro, Nana Kwaku Amofa Diatuo, belonged to the Asona Clan. He was succeeded by his maternal brother, Nana Ankam, who, with the permission of the New Juaben Omanhene, blackened the Stool of his predecessor. Thus a black Stool for the ruling family of Suhyen came into being.
The position of Odikro continued to be held by the Asona family of Nana Diatuo, until after the reign of Nana Obiri Nyebi, when members of other clans including the Ekuona, Aduana and Agona, began to sit on the Stool. Thus Nana Frimpong Manso I, an Ekuona, occupied the Stool in 1954. The Respondents insist that anytime someone outside the Asona Clan sat on the Stool, he did so with the prior consent or approval of the Asona ruling family. During the reign of Frimpong Manso I, the Omanhene of New Juaben Nana Akrasi elevated the Suhyen Odikro Stool into an Mponua or Divisional Stool. The occupant of the new elevated Stool then created the queen mother Stool, whose first occupant was also an Ekuona. Nana Frimpong Manso I was followed by Frimpong Manso II, also an Ekuona. The dispute that has found its way to this Court arose after the latter was destooled and the Elders embarked on a search for a successor.
The Plaintiffs/Respondents claimed that they remained the rightful owners of the Stool, which had been created by their Asona ancestors with an Odikro status and later elevated to a divisional status. This elevation, in their view, made no difference to their ownership of the Stool. The Defendants