Chairman of Suru Group, Edward Akinlade has cried out over the attempt by Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) to take over his property, Best Western Plus Hotel, located on Allen Avenue Ikeja, Lagos.
He is therefore calling on the Federal government as well as authorities concerned to come to his rescue.
Akinlade who described AMCON’s activities as illegal and fraudulent while addressing newsmen in Lagos said official of AMCON had in the morning of September 22, 2017 stormed the venue where his property is located with armed policemen to forcefully eject staff and customers from the hotel building, in attempt to seal up the facility over allegations of N15.3 billion the hotel allegedly owed Oceanic Bank Plc (now Ecobank).
The Suru Group boss said, “In 2014, AMCON sued us, saying that we owed them N15.3billion but the suit was dismissed by Justice Idris and the sum of N50 was awarded as cost in favour of our company but AMCON still went to another court and sued us again as counter claim.”
Akinlade said further that judgement was again given by another judge, Justice Hassan on March 22, 2018 in his company’s favour, stating that the “counter claim is an abuse of judicial process, it seeks to relegate issues that have been determined by the court, it is an attempt to restore Suit No FHC/L/CS/218/2014, which has been dismissed by this court on 22/6/2015.”
He noted however that even after the last judgment, AMCON has still not given up as it has again appealed the judgment. “Judgment was given on the 22nd of March 2018 and AMCON appealed again in the following day, saying the judgment is wrong. But by the judgment we had in March this year, the court said we do not owe AMCON and therefore it cannot seize our property but as at today, AMCON is still sitting in our property at Allen. They have Mobile Police there every day.”
Akinlade lamented that AMCON is trying to frustrate his company to let go its property adding “We defeated AMCON in the Federal High Court, Lagos but what it has done now is that it has appealed to the court of Appeal. We know we are still going to win the case at the Appeal Court and we also know that AMCON will still take the case to the Supreme Court after we have won in the Appeal Court and when we win the case at the Supreme court, the question is who will get for us our property from AMCON?
He therefore called on the federal government as well as relevant authorities to come to his rescue.
But Jude Nwauzor, the head, Corporate Communications, told BusinessDay that he will not comment on the issue since it is currently in court.
“We will not be commenting on a case that is sitting before the competent judge. Our lawyer has asked us to ignore Edward Akinlade on the matter because people go to court to seek redress not at a press conference,” Nwauzor added.
He said the corporation was simply obeying a court order, which mandated the agency to take over the hotel due to its indebtedness running to over N27 billion.
Ifeoma Okeke
