OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, JCA (Delivering the Leading Judgment): This appeal queries the correctness of the decision of the High Court of Cross River State, holden at Calabar (hereinafter abridged as “the lower court”), coram judice: Elias O. Abua, J., in Suit No. HC/322/2013, delivered on 18th January, 2014. Before the lower court, the appellants and the respondents were the claimants and the defendants respectively.
The facts of the case, which gave birth to the appeal, are amenable to brevity and simplicity. The appellants were the owners of the communal land lying and being along MCC Road (Anansa Road) within Calabar Municipality. In 1975, the appellants leased the land in dispute (13 hectares) to the third respondent on payment of annual rents. In 1999, the first respondent compulsorily acquired the disputed land through a notice of revocation of right of occupancy published in the Cross River State Government Gazette No.2, volume 329 of 11th March, 1999 without payments of compensa…