Media analyst Ujah David Abakpa has urged members of the Abacha family and the developer involved in the redevelopment of their property at No. 68 Molade Okoya Thomas Street, off Ajose Adeogun Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, to respect the ongoing judicial process and return to arbitration as the dispute over the joint venture deepens.
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Abakpa, in a statement, said he had followed what he described as the increasingly contentious dispute between members of the Abacha family and the developer engaged under a Joint Venture Agreement for the property.
According to him, the joint venture arrangement commenced in 2021, while the developer moved to the site in 2022.
He said his review of the dispute suggested that the project encountered difficulties from the outset, including what he described as pre-existing liabilities on the property.
Abakpa said the land was affected by years of unpaid land use charges and was also occupied by tenants who resisted efforts to recover possession.
According to him, the developer subsequently took responsibility for settling the accrued land charges allegedly owed by Mrs Mariam Abacha to the Lagos State Government and also incurred expenses in securing vacant possession of the property.
He argued that those costs became part of the developer’s additional investment and liabilities under the project.
Abakpa further claimed that the property had been on the market for about five years before the joint venture was concluded and that the landowners demanded a premium of ₦100 million as part of the arrangement.
He also alleged that after the developer had commenced construction, members of the Abacha family continued discussions over the property with Zenith Bank.
According to him, the Certificate of Occupancy relating to the property was later reported missing, leading the family to grant the developer a Power of Attorney.
Abakpa, however, alleged that the subsequent registration of the Power of Attorney at the Lagos State Land Bureau was obstructed by the same landowners.
“All these intrigues were documented,” he said.
Turning to the financial structure of the transaction, Abakpa said the land was valued at approximately ₦400 million at the time the Joint Venture Agreement was entered into, representing the landowners’ contribution to the development.
He claimed that the developer had since invested more than ₦17 billion in the project, attributing the sharp increase in development costs partly to the economic changes and inflationary pressures that followed the removal of fuel subsidy in 2023.
He further stated that, based on the estimates available to him, the landowners’ interest in the completed development could be worth about ₦9 billion in potential returns.
The dispute has since moved into the courts, with the Federal High Court having made an ex parte order appointing a receiver/manager over the property and restraining further dealings with it pending arbitration.
Abakpa acknowledged that the dispute was already before a court of competent jurisdiction and that arbitration had been contemplated as the mechanism for resolving the parties’ substantive disagreements.
He, however, questioned the circumstances in which the ex parte order was obtained, alleging that material information was not placed before the court at the time the application was made.
“Respectfully, I believe the order was made on an incomplete picture and should be set aside,” he said.
According to him, parties seeking ex parte relief owe the court a duty of full and frank disclosure, and any failure to disclose material facts could affect the basis upon which such an order was granted.
He also claimed that earlier attempts to stop construction work at the property through the intervention of security agencies had been found to lack legal basis.
Abakpa expressed concern over what he described as growing publicity surrounding the ex parte order, particularly reports portraying the development as though the substantive rights of the parties had already been finally determined.
He said he intended to address those issues further in the coming week.
The media analyst maintained that the overriding interest of all parties should be to preserve the value of the development while allowing the legal and arbitral processes to determine their respective rights.
He therefore urged the Abacha family and the developer to refrain from actions capable of worsening the dispute and instead return to the arbitration process envisaged under their contractual arrangement.
According to him, the project had already attracted substantial investment and held considerable value for both sides, including the landowners.
He argued that continued litigation and public controversy risked undermining an asset which, in his view, remained capable of delivering substantial economic benefits to all the parties if the underlying disagreement was resolved through the agreed legal process.
The dispute remains before the court, while the competing claims regarding the Joint Venture Agreement, the Power of Attorney, the level of investment, the parties’ respective interests and the appointment of the receiver/manager have not been finally determined.
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