3PLR – MRS. FUNMILAYO KUTI V. J.B. ATUNRASE
POLICY, PRACTICE AND PUBLISHING, 3PLR, LAW REPORTS
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MRS. FUNMILAYO KUTI
V.
J.B. ATUNRASE
FEDERAL SUPREME COURT OF NIGERIA
F.S.C. 273/1962
6TH JUNE, 1963
3PLR/1963/58 (FSC)
OTHER CITATIONS
BEFORE THEIR LORDSHIPS:
SIR ADETOKUNBO ADEMOLA, C.J.F. (Presided)
SIR LIONEL BRETT, F.1. (Read the Judgment of the Court)
JOHN IDOWU CONRAD TAYLOR, F.J.
REPRESENTATION
Chief O. Moore (with him, Sowemimo and Miss Ebube) for the Appellant.
- O. Oseni – for the Respondent.
MAIN ISSUES
LAND LAW- Identity of land in dispute – Not clear – Party relying on this not having any interest in the land – Effect.
LAND LAW – Legal title remaining in vendor till conveyance effected – Effect on title of purchaser.
MAIN JUDGMENT
BRETT, F.J. (Delivering the Judgment of the Court):
This is an appeal from the judgment of the High Court of Lagos in which the respondent, as plaintiff, was granted a declaration of title to a piece of land, damages for trespass and an injunction.
The parties are agreed that the land originally belonged to the Oloto family. The plaintiff’s case, as pleaded in the Statement of Claim, was that in June 1927, one Bamgbola Amao bought a piece of land somewhat larger than the land now in dispute from the accredited representatives of the Oloto family for £30, and entered into possession. He did not obtain a formal conveyance until 1956, when a conveyance was executed by the then head of the family, in compliance with an order of the Court made in suits 362 and 363 of 1952. On the 14th June, 1957, Bamgbola Amao conveyed to the plaintiff the land conveyed to him by the Oloto family and the plaintiff entered into possession; in January, 1958, the defendant entered upon the land and erected several sheds, claiming to do so as owner. The Judge found the substance of this claim proved.
The defendant pleaded in the first place that the interest of the Oloto family in a piece of land which included the land now in dispute was acquired in 1918 by one Shonibare on a sale by order of the court, and that she bought that piece of land in 1932 and received a conveyance in 1947; but the Judge found that she had failed to establish either part of this plea, and his finding in this respect has not been attacked on appeal. In the second place the defendant relied on uninterrupted possession of the land in dispute from 1932 onwards, but the Judge found that she had failed to prove this either, and this finding also has been left unchallenged.
Only two points have been argued on appeal, and one, which alleges that the person who executed the conveyance to Bamgbola Amao in 1956 on behalf of the Oloto family was not the person empowered to do so, is without any foundation in the pleadings or the evidence and need not be considered further. The other alleges that “the learned Judge erred in law when he rejected the submission that the plaintiff has failed to prove the identity of the land he purchased from his predecessors in title”, and the substance of the argument put forward is that the plaintiff failed to establish that the land conveyed to Bamgbola Amao in 1956 was the same as the land sold to him in 1927. The dimensions of the land sold in 1927 are described in a “purchase receipt” given at the time, and were again referred to by Bamgbola Amao when he came to give evidence in the present case, and I certainly find it hard to reconcile them with the dimensions shown in the plans attached to the conveyance by the Oloto family to Amao and that from Amao to the plaintiff. The question is, whether this affects the plaintiff’s claim in the present suit. On the Judge’s finding that the legal title remained in the Oloto family until the conveyance to Amao was executed in 1956, Amao acquired a good title to the land conveyed in 1956, and has transmitted it to the plaintiff; if anyone could take advantage of the fact that the land conveyed in 1956 was not that sold in 1927, it is not the defendant, since on the Judge’s unchallenged findings of fact she had neither a legal title to the land nor any possessory rights in it. On these grounds I would dismiss the appeal with the costs assessed at 34 guineas.
ADEMOLA, C.J.F.: I concur.
TAYLOR, F.J.: I concur.
Appeal Dismissed.
