SARKODEE J.
The plaintiff’s claim is for specific performance of an oral agreement to lease farming land of 306 acres at Bonsokrome in the Western Region. Alternatively, the plaintiff claims the sum of ¢33,000 from the defendants as the cost of cultivating 40 acres oil palm trees on part of the land offered to the plaintiff by the defendants which land the defendants now refuse to lease to the plaintiff.
The plaintiff is a barrister-at-law and the defendants elders of Anona family of Bonsokrome and Busua. The plaintiff says that in 1973 the defendants agreed to lease 306 acres of their family land to him for farming purposes. The defendants charged him ¢500 and the plaintiff agreed to accept the lease. The plaintiff made part payment of ¢200 and gave the sum of ¢10.50 together with a bottle of schnapps as custom demanded. The defendants, according to the plaintiff, then promised to execute a formal lease after the plaintiff had surveyed and demarcated the land and prepared the relevant…