BELGORE, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment): In this case, the plaintiff (now the respondent) sued the three defendants (now the appellants) in the Grade II Area Court of Nyamtsor, sitting at Abwa, Benue State, claiming the ownership of a parcel of land on which the appellants were encroaching. He stated his case before the trial court concluding thus:-
"I am praying the court to declare me the owner of the land in dispute because it belongs to my fore-fathers. I also want the court to order the defendants and their agents to stop trespassing on the disputed land."
The respondent's case as gauged from the record is that his father was farming the land in dispute, sharing boundary with one Uta Agele at the southern part of the land and that the appellants were not sharing boundaries with his father. After his father's death, his uncle, Iverper Anenge took possession of the land and was farming it. When Uta Agele left the disputed land to settle at the edge of Dura stream, the res…