He Fought the Injunction, Not the Ownership Ruling — and That Told the Court Everything: Saliu v. Jeremiah & Ors (2026) 12 NWLR (Pt. 2055) 459— Supreme Court of Nigeria

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If someone fights tooth and nail against being permanently banned from a piece of land, but never actually disputes that the land isn't theirs — what does that tell you? The Supreme Court thought it told you quite a lot, in a land dispute out of Ogun State that turned into a lesson on what a perpetual injunction is really for.

The Facts

A group of claimants sued the appellant and three others at the High Court of Ogun State, seeking a declaration of title to a parcel of land, damages for trespass, and a permanent injunction stopping further trespass. Their story was straightforward: the disputed land was part of a larger family holding that four of them had inherited; those four sold it to a fifth claimant and put him in possession; he surveyed it and fenced it; and afterward, the appellant and a co-defendant invaded the land and began selling parts of it to unsuspecting buyers, including two of the other named defendants.

The Journey Through the Courts

At the High Court of Ogun State, the appellant argued the claim was barred by an earlier court judgment on the same issue (a defence known as res judicata). The other defendants who'd bought portions of the land argued their purchases simply didn't overlap with the disputed parcel at all.
The trial court found that the four family members who'd sold their interest to the fifth claimant had, by doing so, given up any personal stake in the land — so it struck them out as improper parties, leaving the fifth claimant as the sole person entitled to pursue the claim. On the merits, the court rejected the earlier-judgment defence, found the traditional evidence establishing the family's original ownership credible and well-supported, and noted that the appellant and other defendants hadn't put forward any competing story of ownership of their own. It awarded damages against the trespassers (though not against the appellant specifically) and granted the requested perpetual injunction by the claimant(land buyer) against all of them, including the appellant. They appealed the judgement.
The Court of Appeal affirmed — though it slipped up in its own judgment by referring to all five original claimants as the claimants, when the trial court had actually struck four of them out. The appellant, still dissatisfied, pressed on to the Supreme Court.

The Court's Reasoning

Balance of Probabilities, Properly Applied

The court reiterated the ordinary civil standard: a claimant need only prove their case on the balance of probabilities, not beyond reasonable doubt. Where a claimant lays out a credible, well-supported account of how they came to own land — as the fifth claimant had here through the traditional history of the family's ownership and subsequent sale to him — and the opposing side offers no competing story of ownership at all, the trial judge's approach in accepting that account was, in the Supreme Court's words, sound and unassailable.

What a Perpetual Injunction Actually Does

The court took the opportunity to explain the mechanics of this remedy in some depth. An injunction, generally, is an equitable order compelling someone to do — or, more often, stop doing — something, issued to prevent an ongoing or threatened wrong that money damages alone couldn't adequately fix. A perpetual injunction specifically is the final, indefinite version, granted once a court has conclusively determined a party's rights, precisely so the winning party doesn't have to keep coming back to court every time the same wrong recurs. It isn't a standalone remedy — it only exists to protect a right the court has already recognised.

The Tell in the Appellant's Own Conduct

In a striking observation, one justice noted that the appellant's real fight throughout the appeal process wasn't against the finding that the fifth claimant owned the land — it was specifically against the order stopping him from interfering with that ownership. The justice suggested this told its own story: someone with no design on land that isn't theirs typically has little reason to resist, so vigorously and at such length, an order simply telling them to leave it alone.

A Clerical Slip Isn't a Ground for Appeal

On the Court of Appeal's mistake in describing all five original claimants as "claimants" (rather than noting that four had been struck out), the Supreme Court held that not every error in a judgment justifies overturning it — only errors substantial enough to have actually affected the outcome. This one was mere surplus wording that didn't touch the court's actual findings on ownership, trespass, or the injunction, and the appellant hadn't even claimed he was misled by it.

The Final Verdict

The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the appeal, upholding the finding of ownership in favour of the fifth claimant and the perpetual injunction restraining the appellant.

Key Takeaways

  • A perpetual injunction is the natural companion to a successful ownership claim — once a court finally decides who owns land, protecting that right against future interference typically follows.
  • Failing to offer any competing evidence of ownership is a serious weakness in a land dispute; courts notice, and it can be decisive.Not every mistake in a judgment is fatal on appeal. 
  • Only errors that actually affected the outcome will get a judgment overturned.
  • What a party chooses to fight — and not fight — on appeal can itself be revealing to a court weighing the merits.

Questions for You

Do you think a party's litigation strategy (what they choose to contest versus concede) should ever factor into a court's substantive reasoning, or should judges confine themselves strictly to the evidence? And how far should courts go in overlooking clerical slips in a judgment before those slips start to matter?


This post is a plain-language summary and commentary based on a reported judgment of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. It is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Readers with a specific legal question should consult a qualified legal practitioner.

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