[1961]DLHC5426 • July 24, 1961 • High Court
NII AMON KOTEI vs. ASERE STOOL
The dispute concerns ownership and rights over approximately 900 acres of land known as the Mukose lands. The Nikoi Olai family claimed ancestral ownership of the land, asserting possessory rights over seven-eighths of it, while the Asere Stool claimed paramount title over the entire land, including rights to collect tolls from strangers farming on the land. The village of Mukose was abandoned in 1926, but descendants of the Nikoi Olai family maintained farms and asserted their rights. The case revisited earlier findings from a 1948 case concerning compensation for land acquired for a wireless station, where the Nikoi Olai family was recognized as owners in possession of seven-eighths of the land, subject to the paramount title of the Asere Stool.
read moreHe reviewed the facts and earlier proceedings set out in headnote, and continued:] The first point to be considered is whether the Nikoi Olai family are entitled to these 900 acres of land as their ancestral property or whether it is Asere stool land. Upon this point the Nikoi Olai family relied greatly upon an earlier case decided in 1948 by the same judge, Jackson, J. It was a case where a piece of land was required for a wireless station. It was part of these Mukose lands. The government had acquired it. The compensation had been assessed by Korsah, J. But the question was: to whom was the compensation payable? The rival claimants were the Nikoi Olai family and the Asere Mantse. Jackson, J. held that the Nikoi Olai family were the parties in possession of seven-eighths of the area as the owners thereof and, as such, were entitled to receive compensation for seven-eights of the area of the land; but that in respect of the remaining one-eighth the Asere Mantse was entitled to receive ...