WHO BITES THE DUST?

WHO BITES THE DUST?

SHOFOWORA FAMILY LAND DISPUTE

VERSUS MERITBODE NIGERIA LTD

TRADE NAME [EMERALD] ...

............................................. FAMILY OF SHOFOWORA SPEAKS OPUT ON THE PROTRACTED LAND BATTLE

............................................DO NOT CHEAT THE ELDERS SO THAT YOU WILL NOT BE CHEATED

(1) ..................................CHIEF SHOFOWORA ,DEPUTY HEAD OF THE ENTIRE FAMILY HOLDS NEWS OFFICE DESK OF PAEDIA EXPRESS SPELL BOUND IN A WORLD EXCLUSIVE NARRATIVE!!!!

A family meeting was called by the head of the family, Chief Ismaila Tomiwa and at that meeting it was suggested that we should bring all the terms together because even Redeem Church was also interested because of the University project. They needed to buy a large space for their University project, Ososa is very close to Redeem Camp. So when they said this, ignorantly I agreed on behalf of my siblings and everything that they brought altogether was about 80 acre a was what redeem brought but they later changed their  minds because the general overseer wanted to be honoured as they decided to change the university to his home town . it is however 300 acre  in all though when they brought 80 hectare and they saw the money they bought in a land grabber with the support of the Nigerian police  to confront the family and take over the whole land. There were several things that happened at the time, via SARS in fact I was bundled to Abuja via SARS and was called and accused of being a ritualist and I was also called a gun runner and they searched my house and nothing incriminating was found but even at that i was detained, So a lot of well meaning Nigerians that are my business partners and friends heard about it

So my friends assembled in Abuja waiting for me at police force headquarters, they intervened at that time and said that it was just an issue of dispute in land. We both agreed for a percentage of 60% for the family and 40% for peace to reign and we had to agree to this in good faith, I mean can you fight those carrying weapons. They used half of their land to do public relation and after selling it off they now returned to us courtesy of the head of the family Alhaji sumola shofowora and mr tunji akinsanya. As he believed that he can use them to cheat the family, so one day, one of the elders in the family brought in a buyer she is called madam Saratu shofowora.

Q?     Who is mr Tunji Akinsanya? We have 7 branches in the family and the mother is from one of them. She is the last born and he is the last child though she has 4 of them. We were surprised that he became the spokesman for the family though we kicked against it but this was what has being happening: I am the Deputy of the head of the family and if he was not available I should be in charge but I was by-passed and it was whatever Tunji said that was taken. When his mother died Tunji was handed over to me as a child to train but we were all taken aback when  Tunji said that nobody was going to buy the land   except his own customer.

 He went to look for another customer called Emerald, I was not around when they said that the cash Mrs. Saratu Shofowora brought should be returned to the customer that she brought who had paid the family N4million for four acres.

I asked them why did they want to do this but they insisted and i said this was not good enough but the family told me that Mr Tunji insists that it was either his customers or nobody.

In that village his mother’s portion of land is not up to one acre of land in the shofowora’s family land in ososa, my own father had up to 150 acre and so we saw through the fraudulent plans of Mr Tunji now send back the money to me as he stated that he did not want to have anything to do with the customer. I was not in Shagamu but in Lagos but the customer was asked to come to and meet me to collect the money and he came that same day to Lagos and collected the money.

I heard that Emerald paid at least N3 Million but that the remaining N5Million will be paid in two weeks time. However two weeks became weeks and later several months and a man called Chief Water who was supposed to be representing Emerald was supposed to finish all the agreements before any form of sales took place.

But to our utmost surprise he just started to bulldoze the whole place and started to allocate the lands but we did not know that he has conspired with Tunji and some other young men in the family and instead of four acres that he demanded for he was given five acres by Mr Tunji without the authority of the family and there was no receipt and no form of agreement from the family on the transaction. He started to sell plots of land to innocent customers. So we sent a message to Alhaji Water to come and meet with the family to come and make final payments and collect his receipts and agreements in order to close the transactions as expected but surprisingly he refused to show up and called off our bluff.

Before we knew what was happening he had distributed a lot of state of the art cars to the youths, about seven of them including the head of the family who collected a Toyota Camry car for doing the wrong thing as a lot of royalties were supposed to have being paid in the exercise while the rest elders of the family were hungry and starving as they did not have any other means of livelihood.

A lot of people were involved in this conspiracy they were mostly in the 3^rd and 4^th generation of the Shofowora’s, so they just gathered together because they believe that they can use the hoodlums  to threaten us as a group. We wanted to invite the man for a meeting but he refused to come and it was for almost a year now and nothing was happening, so I now advised and we got a lawyer involved and they paid in just N2 Million. So the lawyer now asked us why Tunji should represent us and this was what made him to ask that we open a family account to represent the 7 families as it was wrong for Tunji’s account to be used and also set up a committee to handle the sales of the land but not an individual and he now said that we should have a Baale in place.

At the end of the day,      the three advice was carried out but they were afraid as  they knew what I could do as i could expose them for all the acts of illegality that had been done in the past if i continue as the Head of the committee.

We went to the press to alert the general   public, so they went to Rainbow FM, and they started to call me all sorts of derogatory names. Some of the people pleaded with us not to sue them for deformation of character. Alhaji water now went further to bulldoze another 37 acre without our knowledge.

What we know is that Tunji got a car and infact about 7 cars were given by Emerald. So I now called prince Jide Kosoko on the phone.

Come we are two friends I do not want us to be firing from each other’s end and I asked him to come to my office and after he heard my side of the story he was not happy about it and he arranged a meeting with the Chief Executive Officer .         So along the line they revealed that they gave the head of the family something and there were others, why they did that I don’t know. Instead of coming to the family that they wanted a portion of the land and agree on the price instead of  formenting trouble and taking what belongs to the family. I was later met at a meeting and I told them that I was not the  head and I told them let us go to Shagamu and meet with the head of the family to decide but the latter sabotaged the meeting.

The meeting was to involve me and my sister with Emerald managing director and I was surprised that the head of the family had gone to organise some group of hoodlums to threaten us that they will kill us and  send me back to Abuja again and this was after we had gone to court. So it was the utmost wisdom that we used that help us out of the situation as I had to advice my sister otherwise this people will kill us and dump our body somewhere. We had gone to court before I met with Kosoko and they now said they will pay the balance of N15 Million with  Alhaji Water saying that he will pay into his account. And our intention is that if they pay our balance we will withdraw our case from the courts. I told them in an advice that you do not withdraw a case from court without the knowledge of the Judge and the two lawyers involved but they shouted me down.

 You just want to take decision without the lawyer’s knowledge but they shouted me down  and I asked them to have their way but I also told them that based on agreement, Our lawyer was supposed to have 5% in the case. If you calculate that all the charges on the case was up to N350,000; Baba now told me that if we go to court it will be end of the case and once the case is out of court we have to settle the lawyers and then we will have ended the case. So he became very provoked and I said that upon what is happening to this family, how can Tunji hold us  to ransom if they are not ready to pay then the case should continue in court.

So for what they bulldoze to sell in acres, we sued them for a trespass at N50million and he has been bragging over the matter.

What do you want Emerald to do?

They should hands off from the 37acres as it has caused a lot of disunity in the family. The head of the family has been suspended so has Tunji who has also been suspended with the secretary kola Akinsanya. We do not wish to deal with them any longer as they are crooks. They have caused a lot of havoc to the family and we just may consider not selling the land to them anymore as they have not used the right approach.

There is a standing  committee set up by the shofowora family for the sales of land in Ososa and anybody or group that wishes to buy a piece of land in the area will have to do business with this committee other -wise the man or group are on their own.