NII DANIEL MARLEY NAI vs KATAMANSO STOOL, THE LANDS COMMISSION

The Plaintiff claimed ownership of approximately 2,172.68 acres of land at Marley Koo near Pinkwai, Accra, alleging ancestral acquisition through hunting, settlement, and valor in the Katamanso War, supported by historical publications. The Plaintiff contended that the 1st Defendant (Katamanso Stool) fraudulently procured a site plan for over 14,000 acres contrary to a 2006 judgment for 670 acres and that the Lands Commission negligently plotted this larger area in the 1st Defendant's name, affecting the Plaintiff's family land. The 1st Defendant denied the Plaintiff's claims, asserting ownership through longstanding possession and a 1892 colonial Supreme Court judgment affirming Nungua Stool's ownership of Pinkwai lands, with Katamanso Stool authorized to deal with the land as a substool.

JUDGMENT AMADU JSC:- INTRODUCTION: (1) My Lords, in land disputes, especially those shrouded in conflicting traditional history such as the instant appeal, the time-tested principle for the evaluation of conflicting traditional evidence has been to analyse same in the light of such more recent facts as revealed by the evidence adduced at the trial. This principle is referred to in the cases as the ADJEIBI-KOJO VS. BONSIE principle. (2) The principle sounds a caution to courts analyzing conflicting traditional evidence not to be swayed so much by how consistent or contradictory the narration of historical events are, nor by the demeanour of the witnesses, nor even pronouncements in published works on the history and traditions of the community concerned; but that the evidence ought to be assessed in the light of acts within living memory. (3) In the instant appeal therefore, the key issues for determination are whether the two lower courts properly understood the evidence in...