ADEYINKA OYEKAN AND OTHERS V. MUSENDIKU ADELE (PC)

POLICY AND PRACTICE LAW REPORTS, 2PLR

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ADEYINKA OYEKAN AND OTHERS

V.

MUSENDIKU ADELE

PRIVY COUNCIL

26TH DAY OF JUNE, 1957

APPEAL NO. 39 OF 1953

2PLR/1957/12 (PC)

OTHER CITATION(S)

LEX (1957)—P.C. 39/1953

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BEFORE THEIR LORDSHIPS:

EARL JOWITT

LORD COHEN

LORD DENNING

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BETWEEN

ADEYINKA OYEKAN AND OTHERS — Appellant  

AND

MUSENDIKU ADELE — Respondent

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ORIGINATING COURT(S)

ON APPEAL FROM THE WEST AFRICAN COURT OF APPEAL (LAGOS JUDICIAL DIVISION)

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REPRESENTATION

Dingle Foot Q.C., Ralph Millner and T. O. S. Benson for the Appellants.

B. J. M. MacKenna Q.C. and Arthur Bagnall for the Respondent.

Solicitors: A. L. Bryden & Williams; Hatchett Jones & Co.

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ISSUES FROM THE CAUSE(S) OF ACTION

REAL ESTATE AND PROPERTY LAW:- West Africa (Nigeria) — Land — Treaty of cession — Lagos — Grant of Iga Idunganran (royal palace) to Oba Docemo, his heirs, etc., for ever — Nature of estate granted — English conceptions of absolute title inapplicable — Iga the official residence of reigning Oba — Grant subject to right of succeeding Oba under native law and custom to occupy the Iga — Crown Grants (Township of Lagos) Ordinance, No. 18 of 1947 (Laws of Nigeria, 1948, c. 44), recital; s. 3.

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CASE SUMMARY

ORIGINATING FACTS AND ARGUMENTS OF COUNSEL

By a treaty of cession in 1861 Docemo, the then Oba or “King” of Lagos, a descendant of Ado, the first Oba, ceded absolutely to the British Crown the port and island of Lagos. The British authorities thereafter allowed Oba Docemo to continue to occupy the Iga Idunganran, or royal palace, at Lagos, and in 1870 they made a Crown grant of the land on which the Iga stood “to the said King Docemo, his heirs, executors, administrators and assigns for ever.” The last of Docemo’s line to be Oba died in 1949, and on his death the chiefs selected as his successor, “in accordance with customary law and tradition,” the respondent, who was also descended from the first Oba Ado but by a different line from that of Docemo. Immediately thereafter the respondent and his followers forcibly entered and occupied the Iga in the face of opposition by the family of Docemo, who thereupon, resting their case on the Crown grant of 1870, began the present proceedings against the respondent claiming a declaration of title to the Iga, damages for trespass, and recovery of possession. The respondent’s defence was that he had been duly “capped” as Oba and occupied the Iga as his official residence in accordance with ancient native custom: –

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