Mr Adetilewa Adebajo is the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Corporate Finance Group, the firm that entered into a tripartite agreement with the Lagos State Government in 2003 for the development of the Millennium Housing Project in Ajah and Gbagada. In this interview with BOLA BADMUS and DAYO AYEYEMI, he narrates how he was allegedly forced out of the sites, having committed so much funds to the project. Excerpt.
What are the issues between you and Lagos State government?
The issue we are discussing here is that, is Lagos State Government above the law of the land? Why will the state government resort to force and violence against an individual because it has breached a valid contract? The Lagos State High Court has proven that you breached the contract. You are not happy with the decision of the Lagos State High Court and appealed it, but you are not following your process in the court. So if you are not happy with the judgement against you, why do you not pursue your case in the Appeal Court, why do you not maintain status quo? Why should you go illegally and fraudulently, to award contract to a project site that has a case in the Court of Appeal? It is fraud! It is illegal! The law is very clear, you can check from your legal department that once a case is in court, both parties have to maintain status quo until the judgement of the court. Yes, it is good to put on record that former governor, Mr Ambode, had some settlement terms and we agreed in principle. Governor Sanwo-Olu came and fulfilled some of those terms.
How much?
I won’t disclose that. He (Gov. Sanwo-Olu) made payment to his credit. He paid up the bank loan in full. But he has not settled the final obligation, which is to be able to provide the necessary documentations which we can file in court for settlement.
His commissioner did not do the last part of the transaction. So it is impossible and we have gone back to court. So what we are saying is very simple. Let us follow due process. Do not overreach the court. I went to the site, they told me that there is somebody from the governors’ office, the Task Force Monitoring Team, intimidating them. They will bring mobile policemen and if you want to film, they cork their guns as if they want to kill you. So why would you bundle me and lock me up at the police station and threaten me because I have a case against you in court? You are trespassing on my property, and the matter has not been settled. Why? Are you above the law? That is a very simple case. Is Lagos State government above the law? Babatunde Raji Fashola was the one that went to the Court of Appeal. They were the ones that were not happy with the judgement that we got against them. We have made efforts to settle. He has been part of the settlement process and the process failed. So we have no choice now than to go back to court. Let us resolve this matter the way it’s supposed to be by law and bring your case to the court and let the judge take a decision. So whatever the final decision of court may be, it is binding on both parties.
What is the final settlement you are talking about?
We have obtained judgement against Lagos State in the High Court for breach of contract. We are seeking specific performance and damages, for both Abraham Adesanya Estate and Gbagada. Lagos State government has appealed the judgment and has gone ahead to illegally and fraudulently reaward the contracts. So we obtained injunction in Gbagada and filed motion for injunction in Abraham Adesanya.
Part of the judgement terms involved paying off the bank. They (Lagos State Government) have done that. Two, it is time to compensate me. I have put a lot of work into the project in nearly 20 years. I invested significant amount of money in the project. I have not recovered my fund. It is easy to pay off the bank because you don’t want noise. The original compensation is either I should continue with the project in Abraham Adesanya as defined. But now, as at last year August, they now started awarding that same project to other people, which is not in my own interest, because part of the settlement is that I should continue with the project. If I am not going to continue with the project, then compensate me for loss of profit.
You talk so much about Abraham Adesanya project and not Gbagada project, which you first started. Why?
Gbagada is under control because we had an injunction on Gbagada. In Abraham Adesanya, we filed the motion for injunction; so hopefully, the Court of Appeal will sit and hear that motion. And then we can stop all the activities going on in Abraham Adesanya. Our lawyers are Professor Kasumu Chambers.
How long has the case been?
Since 2004 and in 2016, we got the judgement.
Are you saying that governors that came after did not listen to you on the case and to which extent did you explore other settlement options such as dialogue?
Fashola, unfortunately, was not responsive on the case. And I told him, look, you have gone to commission a project (Gbagada Housing scheme). You are a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, how can you commission a project that is in court?
Which year did he commission it?
I will show you the plaque, 2014. Also, letter from my lawyers summarised everything. The issue is that when a case is in court, you have to maintain status quo. They haven’t. So when you talk about what we have done for the settlement and what we have tried to do, we have done a lot. When Ambode got there, we reached out to him, discussed with him and he got involved. We negotiated and we reached the settlement. The governor said he had signed off on my settlement, but nine months, one year after, I did not set eye on the letter.
I spoke with his commissioner for housing then and asked what is going on here? This is the settlement presented to the governor. This is my suggestion; if you want to continue with Gbagada and commission it, no problem, but you must settle for Abraham Adesanya. So give me my Abraham Adesanya back, I will finish it. You people take Gbagada and we know that we will take our losses and make up for the losses in Abraham Adesanya. This is what was agreed. That was what Ambode signed off for.
Like I told you, Sanwo- Olu paid the bank off. Sanwo-Olu just picked Ambode’s agreement and paid the bank off, and then said, take this place in Abraham Adesanya and I will give you another place in Abijo GRA, in fairness to him. This new commissioner too has his own idea. First of all, he told the governor that there was no more land in Abraham Adesanya. And I said how can you say there is no more land in a place that is in court?
What happened later?
Up till today as I speak with you, the commissioner has not given me the letter of allocation and signed survey plan. I mean the new commissioner. My lawyer went and said Mr Commissioner; give us the letter of our allocation and a signed survey plan. We already have this document here with us–Abraham Adesanya. We will take it and go to court to file it that we have settlement. He (commissioner) refused to bring the document for us. So when he was not ready to give us the document, my lawyer asked how he would sign settlement’s agreement when you don’t have supporting document. What are we going to file in court or what are you going to hold on to? We can’t hold on to anything, so we can’t sign this document agreement.
How did you lose out in Gbagada project?
I lost Gbagada project by force. They brought task force from Governor’s office in 2003. It was physical violent and they beat up all my contractors, damaged equipment and those ones moved out of site. They arrested everybody – contractors, people working there. They came with two buses and put everybody (in) there. They raided the place not once, not thrice.
What was your offence?
They did not accuse me of anything. I was working, the new commissioner came, he didn’t read the paper, he did not read the contract, he just decided to raid the site. The commissioner then was Mr. Owokoniran.
When did the bank stop funding?
The bank stopped funding by December that year– 2003. We moved to site by July and by December the banks were scared.
This thing started during Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s administration. To what extent were you able to reach out to him, when in office, for his intervention in this matter?
I have answered that question, he never responded. I have told you the high- level delegation of the people that I sent to him, emissaries and meetings I had with him. I had countless meetings with him in Bourdilon, in Government House, I told you. I met with him in his hotel in London severally, to be able discuss the issue, up till today; he has not said a word.
Is it likely the silent treatment has anything, to do with political affiliation?
I am not a politician and I don’t belong to any party. What I am trying to explain to you is that I am a banker, an investment banker, that’s my profession. I am not going into party politics; you understand what I am trying to say. This is my state, I am from Lagos State, an indigene of Lagos State, my family is very prominent in Lagos State. My mother retired as a judge in the judiciary, my father did a lot for this state, the late Chief Israel Adebajo. It’s not a political matter; it’s a transaction to help the state to develop and to create houses. So when you have a PPP partnership, you have a situation whereby you have these agreements, the C of Os are here, so the bank is comfortable to fund the transaction.
Now all these projects that you have seen in Gbagada that Fashola constructed, where is their title document?
This is it (showing our reporter the C of O). So how can they claim they own those properties because I can lay claims to those properties? That is what lawyers are telling me that look, you just sit back, let them do what they are doing, you own all these developments, just foreclose on them.
Between the PPP initiative and government-funded housing projects, which one is cheaper to be purchased by those in need of accommodation?
Answer: It’s 50- 50 now because government is bringing land which is the most expensive thing in financing in housing. If you want to build houses in Ikoyi here, they would ask you to go and bring billions, it is not the finance charges that are high, but the land. If you want to start building a housing project and you are serious, this project that you are seeing, we had marketed, we had sold, we had got 50 per cent deposits from buyers.
What happened thereafter?
My reputation is on the line now, I returned everybody’s money. Those are the sorts of losses you have to take to protect your reputation.
Does this mean that occupants of Gbagada Estate don’t have any title?
You are right; they don’t own it, because the outcome of this case would determine their fate. They are just sitting down there on nothing, on plots that are illegality.
Can you now say you regret ever being involved in this innovative idea that with the Lagos State government?
Of course, I have regret. Wouldn’t you have regret? What of if I just left this transaction and I have been doing other transactions, why do I have to bother myself with something that won’t work, what of if I didn’t have an opportunity to continue my career? At the time this thing happened, all my bank accounts were frozen. I was borrowing money from friends and to even pay salaries of my staff for over one year. I couldn’t access my money. Because when the banks ran into problem, the funding I put in place in 2003 was N5.7 billion, it was the money I syndicated for this project. We had drawn first tranche of that money. We are building close to 1,500 and we are selling them at an average of between N20 million and N40 million, and you can figure out how much the project was. The total value of the project was about N30 billion. The banks have committed N10 billion to this project as at 2003. I had N10 billion worth of commitment in 2003 from Nigerian banks; check out the exchange rate at that point in time. You are asking me for numbers, I don’t want to give you numbers but we had N5 billion committed from banks for this project as of December 2003. I mean the syndicate of banks, with WEMA Bank leading them, okay. When we now showed other banks this process of this PPP and what we had done and the structures, they brought another N5 billion, so by December we had N10 billion. And we told Lagos State that look, this is N10 billion, if you can bring more projects along this line, we would help you implement them and fund them, you don’t need to put a penny down, all you need to do is put down the land. Some people are not happy with that because there is nothing for them to take.
So the lawyers are saying that Mr Adebajo, just stay on course, we have an injunction on Gbagada, once we get injunction on Abraham Adesanya, we shut everything down. You know what I have put in, a lot of work in terms of my efforts, you know what, writes me a cheque that is commensurable with the work I have done and let me walk away, collect your C of O and go and regularise for those innocent people that have got those properties.
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