A. G. IRIKEFE, JSC (Delivering the Leading Judgment): This case can rightly be described as having had a chequered history. The writ commencing the action was issued in the Calabar Judicial Division of the then High Court Of Eastern Nigeria on 21st April, 1964. Pleadings were exchanged between the parties and the action was tried by Ikpeazu, J., in 1967 at a session of the Ikot Ekpene High Court sitting at Uyo, when that part of Nigeria then designated as Biafra, was in rebellion against the Federal Government of Nigeria. The said trial, at the end of the rebellion, was declared a nullity and the present appeal is the outcome of a new trial held before Ete, J., (as he then was), in 1975, some five years after the end of the Biafran insurrection aforesaid.
The writ commencing the action reads:- "The plaintiffs' claims against the defendants are as follows:-
1. 600 (Six Hundred Pounds Sterling) damages for trespass in that the defendants have since January, 1964 unlawfully entered upon …