CHRISTOPHER IDD MOTO, EVANS IDD KESI, IDI CHARO IDI, RASHID CHIWAI MALING,BOTI MALINGI MOTO, ALFRED ALI MALINGI, MOHAMED KESI IDDI, JASPA IDD MOTO, CHAI IDDI MOTO, CHIRIBA CHARO IDI, BENEDICT CHAI MALINGI, CHARO IDI CHARO, DOMINICK CHAI IDDI, GUNGU IDI MOTO, ANTHONY CHIRIBA KESI & MILTON CHIWAI IDDI V. CHIRIBA NYAMBU BARUA & DUMA INVESTMENTS LIMITED

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

The dispute in this appeal is whether Chiriba Nyambu Barua (1^st respondent) was, at the time he sold and transferred the parcel of land known as Mwapula/Magogoni/489 (the suit property) to Duma Investments Limited (2^nd respondent), the owner thereof or whether he held the same in trust for the 16 appellants who claim to be his relatives or members of his clan.

The relationship between the 1^st respondent and each and every appellant is not readily apparent from the record. What is not in dispute however, is that they all trace their ancestry to a common patriarch known as Barua Mtune of Mwachipa clan, who once owned a large parcel of land of which the suit property is a subdivision. For convenience we shall refer to the said Barua Mtune as “the patriarch.” The patriarch had four sons named Boti, Moto, Chai, and Nyambu. The 1^st respondent is the son of Nyambu while the appellants are mostly his cousins and/or off springs, of various generations, of the other three so…