WILLIAM AGBOZO DUGBENU & ORS v. THE TRUSTEES OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF GHANA

ACQUAYE, J. A.

This is an appeal against the judgment delivered by the Circuit Court sitting at Sogakope on 27th November 2008. By an amended writ of summons the plaintiff/respondents claimed:

a) A declaration of title to a parcel of land situate at Tewfle the boundaries of which were stated.

b) An order of possession of the said land.

c) Damages for trespass

d) An order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants,their servants, agents, workmen and privies from trespassing on or otherwise dealing with the said land.It was the plaintiffs case that the disputed land was originally acquired on 5th November 1890 from one Kudze Gyan, an elder of the Agbofu Stool of Tefle by the Basel Mission Society which later transferred it to the Scotish Mission of Gold Coast now the Presbyterian Church of Ghana.

The plaintiff described the boundaries of the land and tendered a document covering the transaction.

The plaintiffs testified that on acquisition the church built a chapel, schools and a cemetery on the land and had been in undisturbed possession of the land till December 1985 when the defendants, who were members of the church broke away to form another church.

In 1991 when the church started to build a manse on the land the defendants destroyed the foundation, uprooted nim trees they had planted and destroyed a swish building on the land.

The plaintiff testified that the land is part of Kpohe lands owned by the royal Agbofu clan of Tefle.The plaintiff called two witnesses.It was the case of the defendants as testified to by the co-defendant that he was the occupant of the Tefle stool and that the land acquired by the Basel Missionary was on Gbegbe land which was about 6 to 7 miles away from Kpohe land.

The co-defendant admitted that Kudze Gyan was a member of the Agbofu clan but denied the Agbofu clan owned the Kpohe lands.

He testified that he was from the Amable clan and that before 1910 Kpohe lands belonged to the Foeyi-Nyigorme clan who have never given any portion to the Basel Mission.

The co-defendant testified that Kpohe land and the Tefle Stool were founded by Torgbe Nakakpo Dugbaza I as borne out by judgments of the West African Court of Appeal which he tendered as exhibits 2, 3, 4 and 5. According to the co-defendant the plaintiff entered the land between 1944 and 1945 and built a cemetery before building a chapel in 1965 after a Middle School building was destroyed in 1963 by the flooding of the Volta River. After the evidence the ju