ANIAGOLU J.S.C. (Delivering The Leading Judgment): In this case on appeal, the contending parties have based their claims to the land in dispute upon derivative titles. The central issue, which the learned trial judge resolved in favour of the plaintiffs, was whether the land was part of the land which, in 1939, OBA DOKUN LATONA II the ATAOJA OF OSHOGBO, granted to the father of the first plaintiff, one JOSEPH FOLARIN ADEKUNLE (now deceased), or whether it formed part of the area which the ATAOJA OF OSHOGBO granted to the OSHOGBO HAUSA COMMUNITY "from time immemorial".
The first plaintiff, who is the accepted head of the Adekunle family, sold and conveyed to the second plaintiff the land in dispute in the exercise of the claimed proprietary rights of the Adekunle family, while the first defendant purchased the same land from the third defendant in purported exercise, by the third defendant who was in SERIKI of the Hausa Community of Oshogbo, of the claimed right of ownership of the la…