{"id":887,"date":"2026-07-12T17:21:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T16:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mediaconversation.com\/?p=887"},"modified":"2026-07-12T17:21:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T16:21:41","slug":"court-dismisses-seven-year-land-ownership-tussle-involving-ex-police-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mediaconversation.com\/?p=887","title":{"rendered":"Court Dismisses Seven-Year Land Ownership Tussle Involving Ex-Police Officer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Precious Onyia<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Delta State High Court has dismissed a long-running land dispute case, ruling against a retired police officer who claimed ownership of a piece of land in Urhuoka-Abraka, Ethiope East Local Government Area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hon. Justice Samuel I. Okeleke delivered the judgment on 31st July 2025 at the High Court of Justice, Abraka Judicial Division, in Suit No. H0B\/14\/2021. The case was filed by Freeborn Irhirhi against Odjuwuederhie Oregbe over a parcel of land measuring about 4.44 hectares along Abraka-Ugo-Benin Road. The case had been in court since 2018, making it a seven-year legal battle before it finally came to an end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irhirhi, who brought the case on behalf of himself and the children of his late wife, asked the court to declare him the rightful owner of the land. He also asked for an order stopping Oregbe from trespassing on the land, both while the case was ongoing and permanently after judgment, an order putting him back in possession of the land, and a declaration that Oregbe was not a member of what he called the Ogwezi Dafe Royal Family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Irhirhi, the land was part of his family’s inheritance, tracing back to his great-grandfather, Ogwezi, who he said was one of the earliest settlers in the area. He said the land was passed down through his grandmother, then his mother, and eventually to him. He told the court his family had farmed the land and leased rubber trees on it for generations. He further claimed that Oregbe’s family had no real roots in the community, alleging that Oregbe’s grandfather and father were labourers who came from Edo State and worked for other families in the area, including his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oregbe rejected these claims entirely. He told the court that there was no such thing as an “Ogwezi Dafe Royal Family,” describing Oguezi instead as a large community with several sub-families, including his own. He denied that his father or grandfather were ever labourers, insisting that his grandfather was actually a prince, and that his father built his own house and independently farmed the same disputed land. He also raised a customary law argument, stating that under Urhobo tradition, land inheritance follows the father’s line, not the mother’s \u2014 a point that directly challenged Irhirhi’s claim, since his own ownership story ran through his grandmother and mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the trial, Irhirhi’s case ran into trouble under cross-examination. He gave conflicting accounts of who exactly cleared the disputed land \u2014 first blaming one relative, then later naming someone else. He was also unable to produce any witnesses to support his claims of long-term possession, farming, or boundary ownership. Oregbe, by contrast, remained consistent throughout questioning and was able to clearly identify the people whose land bordered his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matters worsened for Irhirhi when his lawyer failed to appear in court on a scheduled date without any explanation, leading the court to bar him from filing his final legal argument. Despite this, his lawyer went ahead and filed one anyway, without formally seeking the court’s permission \u2014 a move the judge described as surprising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his ruling, Justice Okeleke found that Irhirhi failed to prove genuine ownership of the land. He noted that the contradictions in Irhirhi’s evidence were serious enough to damage his entire case, that he failed to provide sufficient evidence from boundary witnesses, and that his claimed family history could not be reliably established. The judge said Oregbe’s account of his family’s history and possession of the land was more consistent and believable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, the court dismissed Irhirhi’s suit in its entirety, refused all the reliefs he sought, and ordered him to pay \u20a6500,000 to Oregbe as costs for the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judgment brings closure to a land dispute that spanned nearly a decade in Delta State’s judicial system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This report is based on a certified judgment made available by Dr. Emiaso for academic purposes.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Precious Onyia\u00a0 A Delta State High Court has dismissed a long-running land dispute case, ruling against a retired police officer who claimed ownership of a piece of land in Urhuoka-Abraka, Ethiope East Local Government Area. Hon. Justice Samuel I. Okeleke delivered the judgment on 31st July 2025 at the High Court of Justice, Abraka […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[218,199],"class_list":["post-887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trendingnews","tag-court","tag-land-disputes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaconversation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaconversation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaconversation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaconversation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaconversation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mediaconversation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":888,"href":"https:\/\/mediaconversation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887\/revisions\/888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaconversation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaconversation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaconversation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaconversation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}