Oba Saheed Ademola Elegushi & 9 Ors. v. Romay Sales Nigeria Limited & Anor. [2026]

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Introduction

What exactly does the Supreme Court mean when it says leave to appeal will only be granted in "exceptional circumstances"? This was an application by the Oba of Ikate land and nine other traditional titleholders, seeking extension of time to seek leave to appeal, leave to appeal, and a further extension of time to file the appeal itself, against concurrent findings of the trial court and the Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court, unanimously, dismissed the application.

Facts of the Case

The underlying dispute traced back to a suit filed at the High Court of Lagos State, Ikeja, concerning the alienation of land belonging to the Elegushi family of Ikate land — land the family said had been improperly dealt with, giving rise to a claim against Romay Sales Nigeria Limited and a second respondent. The trial court, per Akinlade, J., ruled against the family on 15th March 2018.

Dissatisfied, the Oba and his fellow titleholders appealed to the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division. On 2nd January 2024, the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's findings of fact in full.

By a motion on notice filed on 3rd June 2025 — roughly a year and five months after the Court of Appeal's judgment — the applicants asked the Supreme Court for extension of time to seek leave to appeal, leave to appeal, and extension of time to actually file the appeal. The application was built on eleven grounds, supported by an eleven-paragraph affidavit and a written address. Crucially, the applicants' affidavit did not set out any explicable, tenable, good, and substantial reason for the lateness in filing, nor did it exhibit proposed grounds of appeal that, on their face, showed good cause why the appeal should be heard at all.

Romay Sales opposed the application with a three-paragraph counter-affidavit and a written address. The applicants responded with a further seven-paragraph affidavit and a reply on points of law, but neither filing supplied the missing explanation for the delay.

The Rule at the Centre of the Application

Because the application sought leave to challenge findings that both the trial court and the Court of Appeal had already agreed on, Order 4, Rule 10 of the Supreme Court Rules, 2024 came squarely into play. That rule provides that where the Court of Appeal has affirmed the findings of fact of the court of first instance, any application for leave to appeal under section 233(3) of the Constitution "shall be granted only in exceptional circumstances."

Resolution of the Question for Determination

The Supreme Court, resolving the sole issue — whether the applicants had satisfied the conditions for the relief sought — held as follows:

On the two things any applicant for extension of time must show, the Court restated the settled test: good and satisfactory reasons for the lateness, presented by affidavit, and good, substantial, and arguable grounds of appeal. These two conditions must coexist. Missing either one is fatal, regardless of how compelling the other might be.

On what "exceptional circumstances" actually means in this specific context, the Court explained that where the Court of Appeal has already affirmed the trial court's findings of fact, an applicant faces what the Court itself described as a genuinely difficult task. This isn't a door that opens for ordinary disagreement — it takes something closer to the lower courts having actually gotten the facts wrong on their own terms: evidence that plainly points one way while the finding went the other, or a conclusion so far removed from what the record supports that it can only be called perverse. Where the record instead shows the lower courts simply applying settled principles to the facts before them, and reaching a defensible conclusion, that isn't the kind of case leave exists to correct.

On the meaning of the words themselves, the Court turned to their ordinary dictionary sense. "Exceptional" means much greater than usual — not simply disappointing or wrong from the applicant's point of view, but genuinely outside the run of ordinary cases. "Substantial" means tangible, real, of solid character, firm, strong, fundamental — not a technical quibble or a restated disagreement with how the evidence was weighed.

On why this particular application fell short, the Court found nothing in the record meeting either bar. The applicants pointed to no misapplication of law or fact, no variance between the evidence and the findings, and made no showing that the concurrent findings were perverse. What they offered instead was, in substance, a complaint that the lower courts had gotten the settled principles governing the alienation of family land wrong — precisely the kind of disagreement with a correctly-applied principle that leave to appeal against concurrent findings is not meant to reopen.

On why the Court refused to simply let every dissatisfied litigant through, one of the concurring justices made a pointed institutional observation: if the Court kept granting leave to hear appeals that show no genuine error, just to repeat the same settled principles yet again, it risks turning itself into an overloaded appellate backstop for disputes that were rightly resolved much earlier in the system — drifting away from the narrower, higher-level role section 233(3) of the Constitution actually envisages for it. Leave in this category of case, the Court held, is properly reserved for appeals raising a genuine question of law for the first time, a novel issue of public importance, or a clear, demonstrable error — not for rehashing settled principles a third time, only to arrive at the same result the two courts below already reached.

On the missing explanation for delay, the Court found this equally fatal on its own. The applicants' affidavit never engaged with why it took until June 2025 to seek relief against a Court of Appeal judgment delivered in January 2024. Since good and substantial reasons for delay must coexist with substantial grounds of appeal, the complete absence of the former was enough to sink the application regardless of the latter.

Final Verdict

The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the application for extension of time to seek leave to appeal, leave to appeal, and extension of time to appeal, finding that neither of the two required conditions had been satisfied, and made no order as to costs.

Key Takeaways

  • Leave to appeal against concurrent findings of fact faces a genuinely higher bar. Under Order 4, Rule 10 of the Supreme Court Rules, it is granted only in exceptional circumstances — not as a matter of course.
  • "Exceptional" and "substantial" carry their ordinary dictionary meanings in this context: something much greater than usual, and something tangible and fundamental — not simply a restated disagreement with the outcome.
  • Disagreeing with how a settled legal principle was applied to the facts is not, on its own, an exceptional circumstance. The Supreme Court is not designed to relitigate concurrent findings that rest on defensible reasoning.
  • An unexplained delay is independently fatal. Good and substantial reasons for lateness, and arguable grounds of appeal, must both be present — a strong case on one front doesn't rescue a total silence on the other.

In Practice

Anyone considering a further appeal against findings already affirmed by the Court of Appeal should treat Order 4, Rule 10 as a genuine gatekeeping hurdle, not a formality to be recited in a motion. Before advising a client to pursue this route, it's worth honestly stress-testing the proposed grounds against the Court's own language here — is there an actual misapplication of the facts, a real variance between the evidence and the findings, or something patently perverse, or is the real grievance simply that the outcome wasn't the one the client wanted? Where the answer leans toward the latter, the more useful conversation with a client may be about managing expectations rather than drafting the application. I have observed that it is not always the case that the client is unsatisfied with the outcome at the lower court and desperately wanted an appeal, sometimes practitioners take up these cases to add to their portfolio of appellate briefs handled. Either way, a client should not be coerced into pursuing an appeal with zero chance of winning and where a practitioner has chosen to pursue such appeal, it should be at his cost.

Related Reading

This case sits well alongside other posts on this blog dealing with the specific hurdles facing an application for extension of time or leave to appeal:

This post is based on the reported ruling of the Supreme Court of Nigeria and is intended for general informational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice.

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