THE HON. MINISTER OF COMMUNICATION AND DIGITAL ECONOMY V. PRINCE OWEN ALAO ADENIRAN & ORS

OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment): This appeal queries the correctness of the decision (ruling) of the High Court of Lagos State (hereinafter addressed as “the lower Court”), coram judice: G. A. Safari, J., in Suit No. LD/5764/2014, delivered on 19th May, 2015. Before the lower Court, the appellant and the seventh respondent were the defendants whilst the first–sixth respondents were the claimants. 

The facts of the case, which transfigured into the appeal, are amenable to brevity and simplicity. The first – sixth respondents (the respondents) were the accredited representatives of Oguntoyinbo, Abiola, Falolu and Ilo families who exercised diverse acts of ownership and possession over a parcel of land lying, situate and being at Ipaja, Lagos State more particularly delineated in Survey Plan No. BP 401 A and B of 21st February, 1975. On 12th December, 1974, the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) by a Government Notice, which was publicised in the Federal …