Preface

105
Similarly Rule 77(3) provides that a court shall not proceed to
distribute any estate without a prior valuation of same by a qualified
valuer.
Without any doubt in my conviction i will not hesitate to say that the da'awa
or claim before the lower court in the instant case can hardly satisfy these
requirements. It is hereunder reproduced again:
'' I came here to call these people that our husband has died and I
want for the court to distribute the estate. He has left 3 compounds
properties one in Allen street one in Fajara, one in Yundum, one
Mercedes Benz saving account at the standard chartered Bank.''
The above statement is vague, incomplete and ambiguous. It cannot satisfy
the requirements of a valid claim as we have seen them above for many reasons.
No where it is stated in the statement that the deceased left two widows and their
names. The expressions (our husband which appears in the statement) is vague
since it does not strictly and exclusively apply to 2 wives only but can also
accommodate 3 or 4 wives. The Da’awa is also silent about the two sisters. Neither
their names were mentioned nor the kind of their respective relationship to the
deceased as to whether they were his germane or consanguine sisters or whether
one of them is the former and the other one is the later to him. All these vital pieces
of information are conspicuously missing on the face of the Da'awa. The
consequential effect of absence of the required and valid application for
distribution of estate before a court is so grave that it exposes the whole
proceedings of the lower court particularly the distribution of the deceased's estate
face to face with annulment under rule 77(4) which reads thus: