<p><strong>ANIN J.A.</strong></p><p> For about eight years the plaintiff, a Takoradi butcher, bought cows on credit from one Ibrahim Faleke, who was the agent in Ghana of the first defendant, a cattle dealer domiciled in Nigeria. By 1958, the plaintiff had accumulated a sizeable debt on the cattle transaction; and the parties were disputing about the exact size of his debt, and the mode of its payment. Eventually, they agreed on a transaction designed to wipe off the plaintiff’s indebtedness. This present litigation is all about the true nature of the transaction mutually agreed upon in 1958 by the parties.</p><p>The plaintiff’s case in the court below was that by 1958 his debit balance on the cattle transaction amounted to ¢2,600; and that he verbally agreed with Ibrahim Faleke, firstly, to pledge his house (then numbered 37/3, Effia Kuma but now renumbered 66/3) to the first defendant as a security for his outstanding cattle debt; and secondly to permit the defendants to collect accruing monthly rent of ¢50 or ¢600 …</p>