Published: May 13, 2026
MONROVIA – Long before excavators demolished the Munah Tech Building and reduced the Congress for Democratic Change’s national headquarters to rubble last August, a quieter legal battle was taking place inside the same Sixth Judicial Circuit Civil Law Court in Monrovia. It is a fight that the public knows little about but one that strikes at the core of the same 4.23-acre property on Tubman Boulevard that has occupied Liberian courts, politicians, and now a private investor for nearly a decade.
By Melvin Jackson & Lennart Dodoo
Court documents obtained by The Liberian Investigator reveal that Dr. C. Nelson Oniyama, filed a Petition for Specific Performance before Her Honour Golda Bonah Elliot, assigned circuit judge, during the court’s December Term, A.D. 2024, demanding that the Intestate Estate of the late Martha Stubblefield Bernard and its administrator, Ebrima Varney Dempster, honor two separate Memorandums of Understanding he says were executed in 2016 for the purchase of eight lots from the very same parcel of land. By Oniyama’s account, he has already paid US$132,000 toward a transaction that has produced neither a deed, nor a title, nor possession of any land.
The Land and Its History
The land conflict began in 2014 when the Stubblefield Bernard estate filed an ejectment suit against the Testate Estate of William Thomas Bernard and the CDC, which had been occupying the land under a 2005 lease. In 2016, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Stubblefield Bernard estate, ordering the eviction of both the Bernard estate and the CDC. Despite the court’s decision, enforcement was delayed after the estate’s counsel, Cllr. F. Musah Dean Jr., was appointed as Minister of Justice.
It was not until 2024 that the estate hired new counsel and renewed efforts to enforce the 2016 judgment. To avoid eviction, CDC negotiated with the Stubblefield Bernard estate to buy the land. During these negotiations, CDC paid a total of US$360,000 in rental arrears from 2018 to 2023 and also covered court costs.
The move was a strategic tactic intended to delay enforcement of the Supreme Court’s Sept. 22, 2016, ruling. The lower court had also granted the Stubblefield Bernard estate damages of $50,000 and rental arrears of $36,000, which the party settled. When negotiations ultimately failed, the estate proceeded to enforce the original eviction order.
The Supreme Court, during its March Term session, dismissed a Bill of Information filed by the CDC and called the party’s legal strategy to delay its eviction “preposterous,” “impermissible,” and a “legal charade.” The historic ruling, announced on May 28, 2025, by Associate Justice Jamesetta H. Wolokollie and signed by all five justices of the High Court, cleared the way for the CDC to be evicted from the 4.23-acre property.
Barely hours after the Civil Law Court issued a writ of possession on August 13, ordering the Sheriff of Montserrado County to immediately remove the CDC from the property, the party’s political leader, former President George M. Weah, announced plans for a new headquarters, rallying supporters despite the legal setback.
The CDC described the demolition as a violation of the Liberian Constitution and the Civil Procedure Law, noting that the action occurred while the party still had an appeal pending at the Supreme Court regarding a case for Specific Performance on the purchase of the property.
What Oniyama Says He Was Promised
According to the petition, on April 30, 2016, the same year the Supreme Court first confirmed the ownership of the Stubblefield Bernard estate and ordered the CDC’s eviction, Dempster entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Oniyama for the sale of eight lots out of the 4.23 acres at US$55,000 per lot, totaling US$440,000. A second MOU, signed on August 5, 2016, added two more lots at US$41,250 each.
The petition states that Dempster, acting as administrator, disclosed to Oniyama that the estate was embroiled in an active ejectment action pending before the Supreme Court and that it sought to dispose of the lots by sale to assist in funding that litigation. Oniyama says he was assured that the estate was the legitimate owner of the property and relied on those representations to sign the agreements and begin making payments.
The MOU set out a phased payment structure. Prior to the execution of the agreement, Oniyama had already made an initial payment of US$10,000. A further US$45,000 was to follow for due diligence. Upon completion of a joint land survey and registration of a sale agreement and title deed, Oniyama was to pay US$250,000, with a final balance of US$135,000 upon full settlement. The petition avers that by the time of filing, the respondent had received US$132,000 in total payments toward the purchase price, all of which are documented in receipts attached as Petitioner’s Exhibit P/2 in bulk.
Critically, the MOU included a clause providing that the survey and lot-carving exercise would only take place “immediately after the litigation is ended and the Party of the First Part is repossessed of 4.23 acres of land.” The property description in the MOU specified that the four boulevard-facing lots would measure 528 feet running parallel to Tubman Boulevard, with a depth of 165 feet running south toward the Atlantic Ocean.
Oniyama now asks the court to compel the estate to honor both MOUs and to complete the transaction, arguing that the estate accepted his money, made binding representations, and cannot now walk away from its obligations.
The Estate Fights Back
The respondents, in their Returns filed before His Honor George W. Smith, assigned circuit judge, for the Chambers Session of the same December Term, denied the legal and factual sufficiency of the petition in its entirety and urged the court to dismiss it.
Their defense rests on three interlocking arguments, each of which, if accepted, would be fatal to Oniyama’s claim.
The respondents contend that Dempster did not act alone with authority. They argue that the Intestate Estate of Martha Stubblefield Bernard has two administrators, Ebrima Varney Dempster and Mr. Walker Richards, and that only both administrators acting in concert can execute a binding agreement on the estate’s behalf. They attached as Respondents’ Exhibit R/1 the Letters of Administration issued to both men, asserting that any agreement signed by Dempster alone was legally invalid from the outset.
Second, the respondents argue that even if Dempster had been the sole administrator, he still lacked the authority to sell estate property without prior authorization from the Montserrado County Monthly and Probate Court. No such authorization was ever sought or obtained, they say.
Third, the respondents invoke the very litigation that Dempster disclosed to Oniyama at the time the MOUs were signed. They note that Oniyama admitted in his petition that pending litigation over the property existed in 2016 and remains unresolved. They argue that specific performance cannot lie while the land itself remains the subject of active court proceedings, and they attached as Respondents’ Exhibit R/2 copies of the Clerk’s Certificate and a Writ of Mandamus issued by the Supreme Court in substantiation of that position.
The respondents say the purported agreements are not binding on the Intestate Estate, were executed without proper authority, and cannot be enforced against a property whose legal status before the courts remains contested.
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