Is your neighbour a nuisance to you? (Part Two)

by Tinuke Alabi

Last week, we started looking at the case of Abiola v. Ijoma (1970) 2 All N.L.R. 286. Chief MKO Abiola had taken his neighbour Mr. Ijoma to the court for constituting a nuisance to him by keeping a poultry by their boundary wall. He claimed that the noise and smell from the chicken pens had rendered his house uninhabitable. Mr. Ijoma argued that his pens were tidy and that the noise was not excessive. He maintained that Chief Abiola was being unduly sensitive. Let us now find out the decision of the court.
The court held that even though in any organised society, one must put up with a certain amount of discomfort and annoyance from the activities of neighbours, every person is entitled as against his neighbour to the comfortable and healthy enjoyment of the premises occupied by him.
However, the court explained that in determining whether a person’s right has been interfered with by nuisance, “it is necessary to determine whether the act complained of is an inconvenience materially interfering with the ordinary physical comfort of human existence, not merely according to elegant or dainty modes and habits of living, but according to plain and sober and simple notions obtaining among Nigerian people….What has to be appreciated is that there is no absolute standard in this matter of nuisance by noise or smell. It is always a question of degree whether the interference is so serious as to constitute a nuisance, and on the circumstance of each case.”
According to the Judge,
“When some 400 chickens do join together to click or make noise about the same time and at a particular time of the night, it is bound to be excessive and to disturb the peace of a neighbour who is barely 5 ft. from their pens. The noise made by the chickens at these hours of the night are more than triviality and the plaintiff (Chief Abiola) is justified if he complains.”
The court then granted Chief Abiola general damages for the nuisance. He was also granted an injunction against Mr. Ijoma restraining him from continuing with the nuisance.
So, do you have a legal cause and remedy when your neighbour constitutes a nuisance in some way? Yes, you do, if the degree of the nuisance is very high, such that it largely interferes with the comfortable and healthy enjoyment of your premises.
PS:
For Ms. Osamor, who wrote in last week, with a question: I understand that you are peeved at the audacity of your neighbour to pass her PHCN cables across your house. However, to successfully seek redress through the courts, you may need to prove that some high measure of damage or interference has been committed or will be committed to negate the peaceful and comfortable enjoyment of your property.