GABRIEL MADUKOLU & ORS (FOR THEMSELVES AND BEHALF OF THE UMUONALA FAMILY) V. JOHNSON NKEMDILIM

VAHE BAIRAMIAN, FJ. (Delivering the Leading Judgment): This appeal from the High Court of the Eastern Region (Betuel, J. at Onitsha on 23 November, 1959) raises the questions of res judicata and turns on the application of Section 53 of the Evidence Act, which provides that

Every judgment is conclusive proof, as against parties and privies, of facts directly in issue in the case, actually decided by the court, and appearing from the judgment itself to be the ground on which it was based; unless evidence was admitted in the action in which the judgment was delivered which is excluded in the action it is intended to be proved.

The questions raised in this appeal are:

(1) whether title to land was a fact directly in issue in the previous case between the parties;

(2) whether the title was actually decided by the court;

(3) whether the title appears from the judgment itself to be the ground on which it was based.

In the previous case (No. 33/56) before the Native Court of Mbatechete, th…