A TEMPORARY relief given by a Kwara State High Court, upturning the sale of a two-storey building located in the heart of Ilorin suburb has been permanently dashed as the Supreme Court of Nigeria recently dismissed a legal battle seeking to return the hitherto controversial property to an acclaimed owner, one Mrs. Oluwaseun Agboola.In a judgment delivered by the apexs court, it was concluded that Agboola did not proof her case sufficiently to have the Court of Appeals judgment reversed. The appellate court had overruled the trial courts reasoning and decision.It was in a case involving the plaintiff and appellate, Agboola against defendants and respondents, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc and two others.The plaintiffs case in the High Court of Kwara State was in respect of a two-storey building known a WO15 Sadiku Road, Kulende, Ilorin, which the bank sold by auction. The plaintiff said she had bought the land upon which she built 30 rooms, from one Alhaji Sule Tahiru. The sale agreement was in the name of the appellant and was witnessed by her brother, the third defendant, who mortgaged the property to the bank, without her knowledge and consent since the document were in her possession.She claimed against the defendants a declaration that the purported sale of her property on November 28, 1994 by the second defendant was illegal, null and void.Plaintiff therefore sought an order setting aside the sale and a declaration that the purported mortgage of her property by the third defendant to the bank, without her knowledge or consent was illegal.In addition, she asked for a perpetual injunction restraining the defendants in respect of the building and damages of N50,000 for the unlawful act.The first and second defendants denied the case of the plaintiff. At the close of pleadings, parties adduced evidence, which was evaluated by the trial Judge, who at the end of the day gave judgment in favor of the plaintiff, and granted the sought reliefs.Rejecting the verdict, the defendants appealed to the Court of Appeal, Ilorin Division, which allowed the appeal and set aside the judgment of the trial court.The plaintiff was dissatisfied with the outcome and eventually appealed to the Supreme Court. But along the line, after the original plaintiff died, that Mrs. Oluwaseun Agboola substituted her.Issues mainly determined by the apexs court included whether the appellants exhibit 1 was inadmissible and whether the Court of Appeal Justices were right, in reversing the judgment of the trial Judge, who on the ground that the appellant failed to prove her title to the property in dispute.According to the appellants counsel, the Court of Appeals finding in holding that exhibit 1 was not pleaded was wrong, hence such document should not be admitted. It was also the argument of counsel that the finding of the appellate court that exhibit 1 was inadmissible led the court to hold that the appellant had no root of title and thereby occasioned a miscarriage of justice in the consideration of the appellants case.But the respondents counsel had argued that the facts pleaded did not relate to the document tendered, and so the court below was correct in holding that the document ought to have been admitted in evidence, as parties are bound by their pleadings.In its finding, the Supreme Court said that the averments reproduced in support of the claim were not in tandem with what was produced as an evidence of purchase; adding they were not reconcilable. The court further held that pleadings are meant to be specific and documents sought to be relied upon must be pleaded.The court noted that the Court of Appeal was right when it pronounced that exhibit 1, which she tendered was not the evidence of the alleged transaction. That exhibit 1 rather stated that Alhaji Tahiru Sule paid N10 on account of delineation of land, adding that the document did not state the person to whom the alienation of land.Consequently, the apexs court, which was of the view that exhibit 1 should not have been admitted or relied on, held that the said document was inadmissible, thereby answered the first issue in the negative.On the second issue, the court having examined the statement of claim, found that no averment neither stated that the transaction between the appellant and the said Alhaji Tahiru was under customary law, nor was it so eluded. It found the suggestion of counsel for the appellant that because the transaction was between two natives, and so it was governed by customary law as ridiculous and incomprehensible, because no where in the statement of claim was it stated that the parties were natives.In determining this issue, the court held that a party cannot randomly stray into an argument that did not form part of the case in the lower court, and in the process seek to formulate a new and different case other than the one originally instituted.After analyzing all issues, Justices of the Supreme Court including Aloma Maraim Mukhtar, Francis Fedore Tabai, Ibrahim Tank Muhammad, Olufunlola Oyelola Adekeye and Suleima Galadima dismissed the appeal in its entirety.
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