SETH KWEI ABRAHAM & 1 ors VS ALHAJI MUSTAPHA BAROUDI & 1 ORS

The Ghana High Court, per Justice K. A. Gyimah, adjudicated a long-running land dispute at Oyarifa between the Paulo and Abraham Family of Awua We and Alhaji Mustapha Baroudi and Alhajia Amina Naami Baroudi. Plaintiffs claimed the land was their family property and that any grant in 1976 to the defendants was only a 50‑year farming lease, later breached when defendants changed user, built a Football Academy, residences, and leased to third parties. They also alleged the defendants’ conveyances and resulting Land Title Certificate No. GA 9610 (16 May 1994) were fraudulent, relying on police forensic reports using an Italga Farms lease as a control. Defendants maintained they obtained absolute conveyances from Agbawe head Nii Sowah Oblie in 1976, 1977, and 1979, registered their interests, ran Arafa Farms for twenty years, and then openly developed and possessed the land for decades, pleading limitation under NRCD 54. The Court held plaintiffs failed to prove capacity, rejected the fraud claims, found no valid oral lease under NRCD 175, and concluded defendants’ adverse possession barred the suit; plaintiffs’ claims were dismissed with costs.