S’Court Resolves 44-Year-Old Anambra Land Dispute
The Supreme Court has upheld the ownership claim of the people of Umuagama village (Ukwulu) and Oranto/Akpu village (Ukpo) in Anambra State to a disputed parcel of land that had pitched them against their neighbours in Okpuloji Abba Town.
In upholding the respondemts’ claim, the apex court dismissed the appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal, Enugu which had earlier made similar findings.
A five-man panel of the court, headed by Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour, resolved all the four issues, identified for determination, in favour of the two sets of respondents - listed as representatives of Umuagama village (Ukwulu) and Oranto/ Akpu village (Ukpo).
Court documents revealed that the people of Okpuloji Abba Town, Umugama Village Ukwulu and Oranto/Akpu Village (Ukpo) have been locked in dispute over the parcel of land in the area since early 1970.They went before the High Court of Anambra in 1975 in a suit marked: AA/53/75 and a subsequent one filed in 1977, marked: AA/11/77.
Both suits were later consolidated, and in a judgment by then Chief Judge of the court, Justice Obiora Nwazota, delivered on November 12, 1999, the court declared the title of the disputed land in favour of the people of Umuagama Village (Ukwulu) and Oranto/Akpu Village (Ukpo).
Okpuloji Abba Town, through its representatives - Uyaemenam Nwora, Eric Uzoma, Emesi Okeke, Gabriel Okoye and Nwude Igweonuwu - appealed the decision at the Court of Appeal, Enugu.
The Court of Appeal, Enugu, in its final decision on June 27, 2016 dismissed the substantive appeal on the grounds that the appellants failed to compile and transmit record of appeal within the stipulated period, as provided in Order 8 Rule 4 of the Court of Appeal Rules 2011.
The court also dismissed the appellants’ motion, in which they had sought to direct the Chief Judge of the High Court of Anambra State to re-assign the consolidated suit for hearing afresh, on the grounds that the court’s Chief Registrar had declared the record of proceedings missing.
Uyaemenam Nwora, Eric Uzoma, Emesi Okeke, Gabriel Okoye and Nwude Igweonuwu, acting for Okpuloji Abba Town, subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court, in SC: 589/2016.