MADARIKAN, JSC (Delivering the Leading Judgment): In suit no. IK/44/64 in the Ikeja High Court, the appellant as plaintiff took out a writ of summons against the defendant (now respondent) claiming:
"(a) 500Pounds as general damages for the defendant's trespass to the Plaintiff's land, and
(b) An injunction restraining the defendant, his servants or agents, from further trespass to the said land.
(c) Possession."
The plaintiff's case on the pleadings was that in 1960, he bought a piece of land from one Latifu Akanbi Tiamiyu Durojaiye Ajia who executed a deed of conveyance in his favour on the 31st December, 1960 (exhibit A); that the said deed of conveyance was duly registered; that he was in peaceful and undisturbed possession of the land until 1963 when the defendant entered thereon; and that despite protests by the plaintiff, the defendant erected a fence wall and building on a portion of the land.
For his part, the defendant avers in his statement of defence that in 1959 he leased…