FRANCOIS J.S.C.: The appellant occupied the senior divisional stool for the Leklebi Traditional Area and was chief of Leklebi-Fiape at the time the matters complained of erupted. He was then accused of violating the custom of his area by uttering sacred oaths in a spree of irresponsible abandon. It was urged that the desecration of the oaths amounted to a customary abdication and renunciation of the stool. Consequently, the paramount chief of the Leklebi Traditional Area, Togbe Agboka VI, the respondent herein, and his elders felt compelled to perform certain rites which put the final seal on that act of renunciation.
Had matters ended there, perhaps recourse would not have been had to the courts. But the respondent sent a letter to the registrar of the Volta Regional House of Chiefs, circulated to a number of other persons, intimating that the appellant had ceased to occupy the Leklebi-Fiape stool and urging an amendment of the chiefs’ register to delete the appellant’s name therefrom…