KUMAH vs. KYERAAH AND OTHERS

JUDGMENT OF OLLENNU J.S.C. Ollennu J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. This is an appeal from a judgment of Bruce-Lyle J., as he then was, given in the High Court, Sunyani, on appeal from a decision of the local court of the Sunyani Urban Council. The respondents, plaintiffs in the local court, are children of one Kwabena Bogyabi, deceased, and the appellant, defendant in the local court, is successor to the said Kwabena Bogyabi. The essence of the claim is for a declaration of title to and recovery of possession of a farm described in the writ of summons. It is the case of the plaintiffs that their father devised the farm to them by his samansiw, an oral will made in accordance with customary law, the substance of which was afterwards reduced into writing, and that the family had refused to surrender the same to them. The defendant admits that the samansiw in question was validly made; he, however, contends that the subject of the samansiw is only one farm, but that the fa...