La Mantse Nii Kpobi Tettey Tsuru III, has dragged the Attorney General, lands Commission and Selma Services Limited operators of Woolworth, an assorted clothes and haberdashery shop to an Accra High Court.
They have been accused of acting unconstitutionally in allocating a parcel of land around the Kotoka International Airport, which was compulsory acquired from the La Stool by the Government of the Gold Coast.
Nii Kpobi Tsuru III who is also President of the La Traditional Council based his claims on a certificate of title number 252/36 dated 20th March 1936 by which the government of the Gold Coast compulsorily acquired 798.72 acres (1.248 square miles) of La Stool Lands in Accra under Section 3 of the Public Lands Ordinance of 1876 for the construction of an Anti-Amaryl Aerodrome, which translates into the Kotoka International Airport.
Again under Section 3 of the Public Lands Ordinance of 1876, the Gold Coast government, under a certificate with the title number 404/1944 acquired on 1st September 1944, additional parcel of the Stool land measuring approximately 5.6 miles for an extension to the airfield. However in October 1994, the Lands Commission, a body vest with the responsibility for the control, admonition and management of all public lands in Ghana, leased a portion of the additional land acquired for an extension to the Airport to Selma Services Limited for Commercial purposes. The lease to Selma was for a term of 50 years at an annual rental fee of one hundred and nineteen thousand cedis, which according to him goes contrary to the purpose for which it was acquired.
Nii Kpobi Tsuru described the operation unlawful in light of the fact that Selma Services limited is a private registered company operating on the land for private profit and not for the public interest for which the land was compulsorily acquired for the La Stool. He was more than convinced that ?the lease of the 1.19acres of land for commercial purposes runs counter to the true intent and meaning of the Ordinance under which the land was acquired and also contrary to the purpose for which the said additional land was acquired and therefore, unlawful.?