NGWUTA JCA(Delivering the Lead Judgment): This appeal is against the ruling delivered by Anjor, J. on 27 October 2008. The plaintiff in the court below said he paid the sum of N800,000.00 (eight hundred thousand naira) to the defendant for a plot of land at Ekorinim town in Calabar but when he took steps to develop the land he discovered that the defendant who sold to him had no title to the land. His attempts to recover the N800,000.00 (eight hundred thousand naira) from the defendant failed, whereupon he instituted an action to recover his money. On his ex parte application before the High Court of Justice,
Calabar Judicial Division, the matter was placed in the undefended list and the defendant served. The defendant filed a notice of intention to defend along with a 21- paragraph affidavit supposedly disclosing a defence on the merit.
In the ruling delivered on 27 October 2008, the learned trial judge considered the averments in the affidavit accompanying the notice of intention …