HIS HIGHNESS NTOE EDET E. OMIN & ORS V. ATTORNEY-GENERAL, CROSS RIVER STATE & ORS

ONYEKACHI A. OTISI, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment): This is an appeal against the Ruling of the High Court of Cross River State sitting of Calabar delivered on 27th January, 2011.

The Appellants, who are of Ikpai Omin and Bacoco Clans, commenced Suit No HC/430/98 as plaintiffs by way of Writ of Summons on the 28th of October 1998, against the Respondents. In their Statement of Claim filed on the 8th November, 1999, the Appellants pleaded that the creation of Efio Atai Clan from Ikpai Omin Qua Clan was contrary to Section 44 of the Traditional Rulers Edict 1978, in that the villages that make up the said Clan were not geographically contiguous; scattered and far-flung; and, overlap and hem-in villages in Ikpai Oman and Bacoco Clans. The Appellants also pleaded that the creation of Efio Atai Clan without their consent, as the ancestral owners of land on which the villages situate, was contrary to Qua Custom, and, is null and void. The Appellants then sought the following Orde…