SCONES SECURITY LTD. v. ABUBAKARI MOHAMMED alias ZANJINA & ORS

PROF. MENSA-BONSU JSC:

The appellant is seeking to invoke the appellate jurisdiction of this Honourable Court under Article 131 of the Constitution of Ghana, 1992 to overturn the unanimous decision of the Court of Appeal, sitting in Tamale, dated 24th June, 2022.

Facts and Background:

The case concerned a dispute over a piece of land Plot No. 14 Blk “A”, South East Vittin Residential Area, Tamale over which both plaintiff and defendant claimed ownership.

The plaintiff company (hereinafter ‘plaintiff), based its claim to Plot No. 1.4 Blk “A”, South East Vittin Residential Area, Tamale, to an allocation made to one Mohammed Yakubu in 2008 by the Vittin Lana Sayibu Yabanin. An Allocation Letter was duly issued to him and confirmed by Alhaji Ziblim Abdulai, the regent of Gulkpegu. The said Mohammed Yakubu applied for a 99-year lease to the Lands Commission in 2011, but subsequently transferred his interest in the said plot to the plaintiff. In 2013, the plaintiff had a lease executed between it and the Gulkpe -Na Alhassan Abdulai with retrospective effect from 16th May 2008. Thereafter, the plaintiff erected 20 pillars to delineate its boundaries and sent two water tanks unto the land preparing to developing same.

On his part, the 1st defendant asserted his title to the land and traced his title to the Zobogu Na, now the Nyankpala Lana. He claimed that he acquired a piece of land in 1997 from the Vittin Chief, and an Allocation Letter covering same was executed. He asserted that before the grant of the land, the area was bush, and only two other people had acquired land there in that bushy area. He claimed that the land was then being farmed by a relation, who though informed of the acquisition, was allowed to continue farming thereon. Further, the defendants claimed that it was they who uprooted trees on the land, erected pillars and corner walls and also heaped sand on the land, upon acquisition of the land, various acts of possession and ownership were carried out on the land including the erection of corner walls.

The 2nd defendant went unto the land claimed by both plaintiff and 1st defendant and caused damage to the pillars and the tanks alleging that the land belonged to the 1st defendant. According to the defendants, the plaintiff and its grantor knew and/ or ought to have known that the land was encumbered, in that the defendants had sand, broken pillars and blocks on the land.

Upon eruption of the dispute, the Zobogu-Na asserted that the land