Contractor Clashes With Tenants

For over half a century, the Afoda family has occupied their landed property on the Granville Avenue in the business district of Accra without incident. Their forebear, Abubakar Afoda Gyimah, bequeathed the property to them. All seemed normal in the family until a wealthy contractor appeared on the scene a few years ago and a fortnight ago, the first blood was drawn.

Francis Decland, a Nigerian, married to a Ghanaian lady is said to have close links with the 31st December Movement which must have given him immense power during the tenure of the NDC government. He is supposed to have landed mouth-watering shop building contracts in the business districts of Okaishie and Cow Lane in Accra.

The Afodas claim there was a mix-up in a transaction he had with a deceased family member from whom he bought four rooms of one of their properties and he is now claiming to have bought the whole property. A fortnight ago, he mobilised a bulldozer and young men to demolish the building under contention but some family members and sympathisers did not allow the cutlass wielding youth to have their way and some of the tenants sustained cutlass wounds. At the nearby Police Station where the wounded rushed to have their case heard they were ironically detained on the alleged orders of Francis.

One Alhaji Saleh, who knows the background of the house told The Accra Mail that the house in contention, No. D714/4 had four of its rooms willed to one Asmau Majae who before her death also willed them to one Zenabu also deceased. During the heady days of the PNDC, a problem arose over the same property and the matter was taken to the Castle for adjudication, which was not conclusive. The contractor is now claiming the whole house. The case was resurrected sometime in November 1999 when Justice Mustafa ruled in favour of Francis. The family appealed and requested for a stay of execution. After many court rounds, Justice Apaloo who is currently on transfer outside Accra asked the family to quit the premises. The family stood its ground and in the event attracted a contempt charge. According to the source, the family's lawyer, Mr. Ahinkora at the time Justice Apaloo gave his ruling was ill and could not turn at the court. As a result two key members of the family, Ayishetu Afoda and Mama Jimah Afoda were thrown into jail. The six-week jail was changed to six months with hard labour because according to him the judge said one of the accused was making noise about the sentence.

At the time of going to press, the family lawyer was struggling to have the two persons released on bail.

The Ghanaian Times of November 16, 2000, carried a notice to the effect that by a judgement of the High Court presided over by Her Lordship Mrs. Justice Georgina Kusi Appau the land certificate on the parcel of land issued to Francis Decland is cancelled from the records of the Land Title Registry. The action was informed by the non-compliance with the statutory condition contained in Section 54 of L.I. 1341.