SALI AGBALAGBA v. ASUMAH SUALEH

JUDGMENT

The plaintiff sued for declaration of title to a ten-room compound house situated at

Katejieli and bounded to the north by the houses of Agbalagba, Brokum to the south,

Alhaji Gbader to the east and the east by the ECG Church. The only ancillary relief is

for any other relief the court deems fit.

The plaintiff is a Nigerian and the defendant a Ghanaian. The owner of the house is

one Pastor Matthew Adetoro, also a Nigerian and a direct uncle to the plaintiff.

According to the plaintiff, her late father was the elder brother of Matthew and both

built their houses side by side. The plaintiff’s father was a business man and his

younger brother who was the owner of the house in dispute, a pastor. According to

the plaintiff, the house was built in the 1950s. It is a mud structure reinforced with

cement plastering.

According to the plaintiff, her uncle, Pastor Matthew Adetoro returned to their

country Nigeria with his wife and children because of the Aliens Compliance Order

of 1969, leaving the house in dispute to his elder brother who was plaintiff’s father

and never returned till he died. Plaintiff’s father rented the rooms in the disputed

house to tenants and accommodated the defendant in one of the rooms for free

because of the immense help the latter gave to the former in his business. Defendant

has continued to occupy the room after the latter’s death. The plaintiff is the sole

surviving child of her father living in Ghana while Pastor Matthew Adetoro has

neither a wife nor a child or direct family member living in Ghana. The defendant has

not denied the house is for plaintiff’s uncle. He has not denied it was plaintiff’s father

who accommodated him for free in Pastor Matthew’s house. In fact, he admits all the

averments of the plaintiff as to the history and ownership of the house.

The claim of the defendant is however that the house in dispute was gifted to him by

plaintiff’s father for the immense help he gave him and also in satisfaction of a failed

promise to send him to Mecca on pilgrimage. After assuming ownership of the house,

defendant said he made a teacher his caretaker and left for Nigeria with plaintiff’s

father. Defendant said his caretaker later wrote and informed him the house was

partially broken down and so he came back home in Ghana and renovated it but now

the entire house needs renovation and it was in his bid to do same that the plaintiff

took this action. The defendant then counterclaimed for GH