The Registered Trustees of Trans-Amadi Mosque, Port Harcourt, have filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal, challenging the judgment of Justice G.O. Omereji which conferred the ownership of the disputed land at Rainbow town on the Rivers State Government on the basis of title documents that date back to old Eastern Region.
The Rivers State High Court declared that the land in question belongs to the Rivers State Government.
The Court also declared that the Registered Trustees of Trans-Amadi Mosque had no approval to construct any structure on the disputed land.
In Suit Number CA/PH/189/2019, the Registered of Trans-Amadi Mosque said that Justice G.O. Omereji erred while delivering judgment on Suit Number PHC/986/2012, when he declared that the Rivers State Government’s title was superior to the ownership claim of Chief Amadi who sold the land to them.
They formulated 10 Grounds of Appeal on which they are asking the appellate court to set aside the judgment of the High Court of Rivers State of 27, November, 2018.
The trustees claimed that the learned trial judge erred in law by holding that the effect of Exhibit K, the certificate of title, in the instant case, is that the Rivers State Government, has valid title to the land in dispute.
The Trustees of Trans-Amadi Mosque had approached the Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt in February 2012, after the then Governor Rotimi Amaechi administration, through the Rivers State Ministry of Urban Development and Physical Planning, stopped them from erecting a structure on the disputed land without approval.
In that instance, the trustees of Trans-Amadi Mosque claimed that the Amaechi administration through its agents and servants forcibly entered the land in dispute, fenced it up with wired fence and locked it up.
But in his ruling, Justice G.O. Omereji on Tuesday, 27th November, 2018 said exhibits tendered in court show that the claimant purchased a land which was already owned by the State Government following its acquisition by the Eastern Nigerian Government in 1959.