EKO JCA (Delivering the Lead Judgment): On 22 December 2011, the High Court of Bayelsa State (Coram: D. E. Adokeme J.) in the suit No. YHC/219/2008, delivered its judgment affirming that:
The traditional history of the claimant’s vendor is more probable than that of the defendants. The DW1 and DW6 agreed that the land in dispute was used by Ikoli and Agbagene, ancestors of the claimant’s vendor before the purported deforestation by their grand father Obeba. (And that in) paragraph 2 of the statement on oath of the CW6 and paragraph 16 of the amended statement of claim filed on 30 June 2010, it is stated and pleaded respectively that the ancestor of CW6, Azabula, was the first person that cleared the land in dispute.
The learned trial judge in the judgment, further held that the evidence of DW1 and DW6 only go to buttress the said pleadings and evidence. On these bases, the learned trial judge held that: the claimant has proved the root of the vendor, the Ogboma family, to the Ebele…