ADADE J.S.C.: On 9 March 1987 the plaintiff, as head and lawful representative of the Nii Armah Sogblah family of Osu, Accra filed an action against the defendants claiming ¢5 million damages for trespass and an injunction to restrain the defendants from interfering with a piece of land at Haatso, a village near Accra.
Shortly after the defendants had appeared to the writ, the plaintiff applied for an interim injunction against them. In the affidavit accompanying that application, he averred that he and his family settled on the land a long time ago, “over two hundred years prior to the commencement of this action . . . farming on the surrounding arable land as communal land.” He does not say how they came by the land to settle on. But in paragraph 5 of the said affidavit he avers that the defendants claim the same land as their ancestral land, granted to the plaintiff’s ancestors for a settlement. The plaintiff does not seem to deny this claim. On the contrary, he says in paragraph 9 …