JAMES SONGO V. TERHEMEN AKURE (SUBSTITUTED BY AN ORDER OF COURT MADE ON 2 MAY 2013)

OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment): This appeal questions the correctness of the decision of the High Court of Benue State, coram, I. Hwande, C. J., in suit No. MHC/278/2003, delivered on 15/07/2008, wherein the appellant's action was dismissed. The appellant and the respondent were the plaintiff and respondent respectively in the lower court.

The facts of that case, which transmitted into the appeal, are quite brief. The parties and their forebears are not strangers to court litigation. This time around, the appellant claimed that he inherited the land in dispute, commonly known as Songo Adisha land being at Ankpa Ward, near Makurdi Modern Market, from his late father, Songo Adisha. Sometime ago, one Abu, from Ogoja in Cross River State, was initially on the land and Wanrumun inherited same from him. After Wanrumun stopped farming the land, one Kyanyon Ako, a tax collector in the then Naku District, made a gift of the land to the appellant's father. In t…