DR. F.S.K. OWUSU V. NICOL MIRO FORESTRY CO. LTD AND SCANFARM CO. LTD

JUDGMENT

Dr. Poku Adusei, J.A.

This suit raises contentious issues in the acquisition, control and maintenance of the usufructuary interest in land by a subject of a stool.  For a subject of a stool, the usufruct in Ghanaian land law is acquired in the exercise of an inherent right by that subject through the development of an unappropriated portion of the land belonging to the stool or family.

Such mode of acquisition of land became the bedrock of the plaintiff’s claim of ownership to about 500-acres of land in the Agogo traditional area of Ashanti. The plaintiff, a native of Asante Akyem Agogo and a royal of the Agogo Stool, averred that he acquired these large tracts of land from the 1970s by cultivating maize, yams, and cassava on virgin forests belonging to the Agogo Stool, such that by 1985 he had cultivated about 500-acres of farmland as his own. The plaintiff further averred that he prepared a cadastral plan of his 500-acres farmland and same was certified by the paramount chief …