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25/06/2016

Business FCT Admin Evicts Obaigbena From Thisday Dome

FCT Admin Evicts Obaigbena From Thisday Dome

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BY SAHARAREPORTERS, NEW YORK
The Abuja Investment Company, the investment
sector of the Federal Capital Territory Administration
(FCTA), evicted controversial newspaper publisher
Nduka Obaigbena and his company, ThisDay, from
ThisDay Dome in Abuja on Friday.

Last week, a Court of Appeal gave a judgment
approving the eviction of the debt-ridden publisher
from the property. The court case arose from the
failure of Mr. Obaigbena’s company to pay an
outstanding balance on a lease agreement
pertaining to the property.

The publisher has been in the news lately for firing
some of his editorial employees who demanded
payment of a huge backlog of salaries. Reporters
and other staff of Mr. Obaigbena’s ThisDay
newspaper are being owed salaries for more than a
year.

Moments after taking over the property from the
court bailiff, the Group Managing Director/Chief
Executive Officer of Abuja Investment Company
Limited (AICL), Musa Ahmed Musa, declared that
the court “is indeed the last hope of the common
man.”

Mr. Musa recalled that Plot 702 Cadastral Zone
A00, CBD in Abuja was in 2009 allocated to AICL,
adding that the company thereafter signed a two-
year lease agreement with Messrs Leaders and
Company (Publishers of ThisDay Newspaper) in
respect to the property, now popularly called
“ThisDay Dome Arena.” The lease agreement was
effective from May 1, 2009.

Mr. Musa stated, “The total rent payable for the
term was ₦97,094,284.02, of which Messrs.
Leaders & Company deposited the sum of
₦57,558,854.73 as part payment. The lease
agreement provided that the balance of the rent in
the sum of N39,495,429.30 was to be paid on or
before August 31, 2009.

“In spite of several requests for payment, however,
the balance of the rent remains outstanding as
Messrs. Leaders & Company has flagrantly refused
to pay.”

The AICL’s chief executive disclosed that, due to
the unpaid lease balance, the investment company
on April 13, 2011, wrote to Mr. Obaigbena’s
company indicating unwillingness to renew the
lease that expired on April 30, 2011. In the
termination letter, AICL also demanded that Messrs.

Leaders & Company vacate the property at the end
of the lease period.

Mr. Musa said that the debtor company ignored the
notice to quit the property, adding that the
company’s recalcitrant behavior was due to its
being a media house. He accused Mr. Obaigbena’s
company of threatening to use the media to
blackmail AICL and FCTA to back away from
collecting rent and also to forfeit its rights to the
property.

According to him, AICL ignored the blackmail and
decided to resort to the law courts for remedy. In
2012, the investment firm filed a lawsuit against
Mr. Obaigbena’s company to recover the property.

After the court ruled in AICL’s favor in 2014,
Messrs. Leaders & Company filed an appeal. On
June 16, the Court of Appeal dismissed the Thisday
publisher’s appeal, granting AICL the right to re-
possess its property. The appellate court also
dismissed an application by Mr. Obaigbena’s
company for a stay of execution.

At today’s handover ceremony, Ms. Ada Amadi of
AICL’s legal department announced that the Court of
Appeal also awarded the investment firm more than
N197 million, representing outstanding rent due on
the property. Ms. Amadi disclosed that the structure
built by ThisDay at the site would be evaluated to
ascertain its value, adding that, if it was not up to
the outstanding rent of N197 million, the investment
company would pursue the balance through a legal
garnishing procedure.




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