Imagine spending years proving your family’s ownership of land. Your witnesses are credible. Your traditional history is consistent. Even the court agrees that your evidence is stronger than your opponent’s.
Then you lose. Not because your evidence was weak, but because many years earlier, the parties had voluntarily submitted the dispute to a native arbitration and agreed to be bound by the outcome of an oath-taking ceremony.
That is exactly what happened in this fascinating Supreme Court decision.
Case Title
Odoemelam V. Ojiavo & Ors (2026) LPELR-83361(SC)
Name of Justices
Ibrahim Mohammed Musa Saulawa, J.S.C.
Emmanuel Akomaye Agim, J.S.C.
Chidi Nwaoma Uwa, J.S.C.
Moore Aseimo Abraham Adumein, J.S.C.
Mohammed Baba Idris, J.S.C.
Issues for Determination
The issue before the Court was:
“Whether having regard to the facts and circumstances of this case, the learned Justices of the Court below did not breach the Appellant’s right to fair hearing as provided under Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution as amended, and equally acted without jurisdiction when they dismissed the Appellant’s appeal based on the ground that was not canvassed by the Appellant?”
On the road to resolving this issue, the Court per Emmanuel Akomaye Agim, J.S.C. made an important pit stop and made a pronouncement on “Whether the result of an oath-taking ceremony in a native arbitration prevails over evidence of traditional history that has been adjudged to be credible, consistent, and more probable?”
A Land Dispute, Two Family Histories, and One Oath
It all started in 2009 when the Appellant instituted an action before the High Court of Abia State. The dispute centred on a parcel of land known as Uzota (also called Ihi Nkwota).
Both parties claimed ownership. Both traced their title through traditional history. And both asked the Court to believe their version of how their ancestors came to own the land.
For lawyers familiar with land litigation, this is familiar territory. Where the title is based on traditional history, success often depends on tracing ownership from the founder of the land and, through credible evidence, establishing how the founder came to the land and how the title passed from one generation to another.
After hearing both sides, the trial Court preferred the Respondent’s version and dismissed the Appellant’s claim. The Appellant appealed.
At the Court of Appeal, things took an unexpected turn. The Court disagreed with the trial Judge’s finding that the Appellant’s traditional history was contradictory. In fact, the Court found the Appellant’s traditional history of title to be consistent, credible, and more probable than the Respondent’s.
Ordinarily, that should have been good news for the Appellant. But there was a problem.
Years before the lawsuit was filed, the parties had already taken their dispute to a native arbitration, where oath was taken. The parties voluntarily submitted to the process, agreed to be bound by its outcome, and the outcome favoured the Respondents.
Despite finding the Appellant’s evidence stronger, the Court of Appeal held that the native arbitration remained binding and affirmed judgment in favour of the Respondents.
The Appellant, understandably dissatisfied, proceeded to the Supreme Court
What Did the Appellant’s Counsel Say at the Supreme Court?
The Appellant’s Counsel contended before the Supreme Court that the Court of Appeal erred when it did not allow the appeal after holding that the trial Court was wrong to have held that there were internal conflicts in the appellant’s evidence of the traditional history of title and occupation. That the Court of Appeal was wrong to have dismissed the appeal on the sole ground of the existence of a native arbitration when it was not the basis of the judgment of the trial Court, was not raised in any of the grounds of the appeal or issues for determination in the appeal and was not argued by the parties in the appeal.
What was the Respondent Counsel’s reply?
The Respondent’s Counsel retorted that the Court of Appeal had the duty to consider all the pleadings and evidence before it and determine if the trial Court properly evaluated the said pleadings and evidence and determined all the issues set before it, that an appellate Court deals with the justice and merit of a case rather than the reasons given by the trial Court for the judgment, that both sides in their pleading and evidence relied on the traditional history of their title and native arbitration by oath-taking; and that the Court of Appeal is bound determine all and not some of the issues in the pleadings and evidence.
The Appellate Court found the Appellant’s evidence better. The oath found otherwise. The Supreme Court had to decide which one mattered more.
So what did the Supreme Court decide?
The Supreme Court first cleared a web of procedural complaints.
The Appellant had argued that the Court of Appeal had decided the case on a point that neither party had raised as a ground of appeal. The apex Court disagreed, stating that the issue of native arbitration was not a surprise attack. The Respondents had raised and argued it in their brief, and the Appellant had every opportunity to respond.
But the more interesting question remained:
What happens when a party proves a better root of title but has previously agreed to be bound by a native arbitration?
The Supreme Court’s answer was both simple and startling. The arbitration wins.
The Court found that the Appellant himself had pleaded and testified that the dispute had previously been submitted to native arbitration and that the parties had agreed to be bound by the outcome of an oath-taking ceremony.
Having voluntarily chosen that path, the Appellant could not later invite the Court to ignore the result simply because the evidence at trial appeared stronger.
Then came perhaps the most remarkable part of the judgment.
The Court acknowledged that oath-taking as a means of determining ownership may appear “subjective, unverifiable, irrational and unreliable…”
Yet the Court held that once parties voluntarily submit to such a customary process and agree to be bound by it, traditional evidence, no matter how credible, takes a back seat.
In the exact words of the Court, Per Agim J.S.C held:
“This case highlights a situation where there is a conflict between a party’s evidence of genealogical history of root of title adjudged to be consistent, credible and better than that of the adversary and the decision of a native arbitration by oath-taking giving title to the adversary because the adversary did not die within an agreed time frame after taking the oath. This is what happened in this case. As subjective, unverifiable, irrational, and unreliable as such oath-taking is as a means of proving ownership of land under customary law, established case law accepts it as overriding an obviously verifiable, better, and objective means of proof as evidence of genealogical history of root of title. See for example Onyenge V Ebere (2004) 6 SCNJ 142, in which this Court held per Tobi JSC thusly –
“The issue was based on oath taking and the after effects of the exercise on the parties. In view of the fact that the respondents survived after taking the oaths, the parties were not bound by niceties of the law as submitted by learned Senior Advocate that possession is nine-tenths of ownership. That may well be so under the common law but certainly not the position in the customary law under which the oath was taken. It is my view that where the parties decide to be bound by traditional arbitration resulting in oath taking, common law principles in respect of proof of title to land no longer apply. In such a situation, the proof of ownership or title to land will be based on the rules set out by traditional arbitration resulting in oath taking.”
See also Egesimba V Onuzuruike (2002) 9 SCNJ 63, Ume V Okoronkwo (1996) 12 SCNJ 404 and Idika V Erisi (1988) 2 NWLR (Pt.78) 563.”
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