10/08/2020
THAT SUPREME COURT JUDGMENT ON IGANMU LANDS IN LAGOS STATE
I have of late been embroiled in the aftermath of the judgement of the Supreme Court judgment in App. No. SC.54/2009 that allegedly confers title over lands at Orile-Iganmu in Lagos State on the Ojora Family. I know that there are controversies as to the land area covered by the judgment having regard to the plan that was submitted in the suit and pronounced upon. I do not wish to address those controversies here. I am concerned with how that judgment affects businesses and industrial concerns that have been on the lands for decades.
The Ojora Family has effected what it called enforcement of the judgment which was nothing more than posting "Possession Taken" on the walls of many of the buildings on parts of the Iganmu Area and declaring that it had taken possession. They have then been harassing the owners of these buildings to enter into fresh leases with them at a fine.
Expectedly, there has been an uproar. Several suits have been filed in court. The Lagos State Government decided to reach a compromise with the Ojora Family and paid them over a billion Naira. However, the language of the compromise leaves room for the argument that it covered only Lagos State property schemes in the area.
The purpose of this piece is to draw attention to the provisions of the Limitation Law of Lagos with respect to another kind of title to land which is called Prescriptive Title. It raises a fundamental question as to whether the Ojora Family had any recognisable title and cause of action in law against the businesses in occupation of the lands for decades before or at the time that they filed their suit as distinct from any title or cause of action against the families or persons that put those businesses into possession.
The legal position, as I see it is that irrespective of who put those businesses into possession and how, and independent of the title or lack of same of the people that put them into possession, most of the businesses had acquired prescriptive title to the respective lands that they occupy at Iganmu, Lagos State by virtue of long and adverse possession that was advertized and known to the whole world as at 1972 when the Ojora Family instituted Suit No. LD/562/72, which culminated in the Supreme Court judgment in Appeal No. SC.54/2005 in 2009.
A prescriptive title is a title by prescription of the law and is acquired by long and adverse possession to the knowledge of the owner of the property. For the avoidance of doubt, section 16(2) of the Limitation Law of Lagos State states as follows:
“The following shall apply to an action by a person to recover land –
(a) Subject to paragraph (b) of this sub-section, no such action shall be brought after the expiration of twelve years from the date on which the right of action accrued to the person bringing it or, if it first accrued to some person through whom he claims, to that person.
(b) …” (Not applicable)
Section 21 of the same law further provides as follows:
“On the expiration of the period fixed by this law for any person to bring an action to recover land, the title of that person to the land shall be extinguished”.
The position therefore, if I may say so humbly, is that with respect to the lands of which the occupants had been in possession for more than twelve years by 1972, when the Ojora Family commenced their suit at the High Court, any title that they laid claim to and with respect to which the got judgment at the Supreme Court in App No SC.54/2009 had been and still is EXTINGUISHED by law. The most that can be said in favor of that judgment is that it does not affect the interests or titles created by the Limitation Law of Lagos State.
The rule as to privies does not apply to the owners of those lands covered or affected by the Limitation Law. Their title having been derived from the law they cannot be considered privies of the families or persons that put them into possession of the respective lands originally. Prescriptive title under the Limitation Law is effective by itself based upon long and adverse possession irrespective of any lack of right to possession at the time that possession was originally assumed. These businesses are now the owners these lands in their own right.
Indeed, the Supreme Court judgment has been a blessing rather than a curse to these businesses. It has operated to oust the families and persons that originally put these businesses into possession and therefore invalidated all lease obligations that they owed to those persons, setting the businesses free as independent title holders to the lands that they occupy by virtue of the Limitation Law.
These businesses should stop losing sleep over the said judgment that the Ojora Family bandies about.
PS. Someone had commented that the Limitation Law does not apply to lands acquired under customary law.
It should be understood that Prescriptive Title is beyond the Limitation Law. It is both a rule of customary law and a rule of common law. It is of universal application. Indeed, it is the root of almost every title to land claimed under customary law. Nealy every claim to customary ownership of land would start from one ancestor or the other being the first to settle at a place and exercising acts of exclusive possession which he passed on to his generations that have continued undisturbed in those acts. That is Prescriptive Title. What the Limitation Law has done is to codify this rule of custom and state the period of adverse possession that will be sufficient to imply and confer ownership to twelve years.
Second, land subject to customary law for the purpose of the exclusion of the Limitation Law can only rightly mean land held by the present occupier from whom possession is sought under a customary grant. The Limitation Law will not operate to transfer title to a customary tenant. But where the tenant had in breach of his customary lease or grant divested himself of title, the cause of action of the grantor or customary title holder against the person to whom the customary tenant relinquished possession, shall be determined in accordance with the Limitation Law to confer that person with a prescriptive title after twelve years of adverse possession.
Chuks Nwachuku
2020
