By Usman Aliyu
The attention of Winning Clause Estate Residents Association has been drawn to an interview by one Oby Okwubanego, who claimed to be the promoter of the estate, granted one of the respected national dailies, Daily Sun, published on page 38 of Tuesday, February 28, 2017 edition of the paper. We have an option of not responding to the interview that is riddled and perforated with all sorts of falsehoods and defamations. But for the record, we have decided to send this reply to set the record straight, especially when the anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Nigeria Police are already investigating the “the woman, as contained in our petition to EFCC on February 20, 2017.
Genesis of the crisis enveloping Winning Clause Estate
Winning Clause Estate, which was recently renamed City David Estate, because of its corporate identity problems, is a mass housing estate in perpetual crisis. The estate is situated at Plot 67 Kafe District, new Gwarinpa, Abuja, and is one of largest mass housing estates in Abuja. With over 350 duplexes already developed in the estate and over seven hectares of land yet to be established, the stress-free accessibility of the estate makes it eye-catching to many house subscribers.
From the Life Camp Roundabout, it is about 15-minute drive to the estate; and if you are accessing it from the Main Gate of Gwarinpa – along Kubwa Expressway, it is about 10-minute drive – at 50 kilometres per hour.
It was planned to be a mass housing estate with a uniform appearance, and the estate would ordinarily have been the most sought after but for the unending controversy enveloping it, which most residents claimed was created by a disputable estate developer, Winning Clause Estate.
The problem with the estate started sometime between 2009 and 2010, when the current house owners bought their properties, under the mass housing project, from one Alhaji Kabiru Haruna, who was then Chairman/CEO of Saraha Homes Limited, a company well-advertised for estate development in Abuja. Many of the owners had long completed payment for the properties, built and were in quiet possession of their properties without any interference from anybody until 2012.
At the beginning of our business conversation and transaction with Saraha Homes, we demanded to see the original allocation paper of the plot issued by the Federal Capital Development Authority. And we were presented with a copy of ‘‘Letter of Offer’’ issued in the name of ProForm West Africa Limited. In fact, our search at the Abuja Geographical Information System (AGIS) actually confirmed that the plot was allocated to ProForm West Africa Limited. We were also made to understand that there was a partnership agreement between ProForm West Africa Limited and Saraha Homes Limited. Indeed, a copy of the said partnership agreement was also presented to us by the Chairman of Saraha Homes, Alhaji Haruna, empowering him to manage and superintend the business transaction and development of the plot.
In addition, Saraha Homes also issued the home owners with Offer Letters, which gave them access to our landed property in the plot and build. And through the grace of Almighty God, many of us finished our buildings and moved in, since 2010, without any disturbance from anybody or institution, not even from the staff members of the Department of Development Control, who regularly visited us during the process of building. However, things suddenly changed when a group, in the name of Winning Clause Limited, came in 2012 and posted quit notices on the buildings in the estate – claiming new ownership of the said plot. The house owners were later told that the then Minister of FCT, Alhaji Bala Mohammed, had revoked the plot in the name of ProForm West Africa Limited and re-allocated it to Winning Clause Limited.
Imagine revoking a plot of developed land with about 300 duplexes and reallocating it! As a follow up to their dirty game, members of Winning Clause Limited later instigated the Department of Development Control (FCDA), under the leadership of the then Director, Alhaji Yahaya, who came to pull down some houses in the estate on December 3, 2012, apparently to send a frightening message to us that a new owner of the estate had come.
Before the bulldozers came, the management of Winning Clause had insisted the house owners pay N25 million per plot again, outside N8 million – many of them had paid to acquire the land from Saraha Homes – to avoid demolition of their property. The same Winning Clause had also initiated several court cases at the Abuja High Court against ProForm West Africa Limited/Saraha Homes over the true ownership of the said plot.
Before then, the Mass Housing Department had told the embattled house owners that Winning Clause Limited never applied for mass housing land through the department and had expressed shock on how such huge parcel of land, already being occupied by people, could be revoked and re-allocated to Winning Clause Limited.
While the legal battle between Saraha Homes and Winning Clause, over who owns the plot lasted in court, the MD of Saraha Homes was harassed and intimidated by Winning Clause management. Indeed, Saraha Homes eventually surrendered after he was released from two-week detention in EFCC’s cell – through “Out-of-Court-Settlement” by way of “Consent Judgment.”
According to the judgment, issued by Court 24 of the Abuja High Court, Paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of the “Consent Judgment” delivered by Justice DZ Senchi of Abuja High Court, it states that the 1st to 3rd Defendants (Saraha Homes, ProForm West Africa and Alhaji Kabiru Haruna) shall refund to the plaintiff (Winning Clause Limited) payments made by each tenant/subscriber of Plot 67, Cadastral Zone, Kafe District. And with the plaintiff and defendants (Saraha Homes and FCDA) agreeing that they mutually settled the issue of payment and receipt of monies from the tenants/subscriber to the land in dispute as per an agreement.
The court further directed that each tenant/subscriber of the land in dispute, who had any outstanding balance to be made with respect to the land in dispute, would make such payment to the plaintiff – Winning Clause. That the plaintiff (Winning Clause) shall not demand from each existing home owners, as named under this agreement, any amount such person had already made to Saraha Homes, as evidenced in proper receipt accounted by them and presented to Winning Clause. But Winning Clause refused to obey the judgment. In flagrant violation of the court order, Winning Clause started giving each tenant, including those who have finished paying for their land to Saraha Homes, arbitrary bills, ranging from N15 million to N35 million. While conversation between the house owners and Winning Clause was on-going to resolve the arbitrary bills, Winning Clause went to court, suing the home owners for contempt of court, and the aggrieved property owners replied their lawyer by asking the court for proper interpretation of its Consent Judgment.
We were on it when on March 25, 2014, Winning Clause engineered bulldozers from the Department of Development Control to level parts of our houses in order to force us to do its bidding. Our lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), later approached the court on our behalf. The illegal action of Winning Clause and the Development Control later forced the house owners to write an open letter to the former president, Goodluck Jonathan, requesting him to intervene and save them from untold intimidation from Winning Clause.
The former president responded to our request by asking the immediate past Minister of FCT, Bala Mohammed, to resolve the issue. A committee headed by the Executive Secretary of FCDA was constituted on the matter. But, the committee never achieved anything.
An insider in the Ministry of FCT later told us “some powerful forces within the ministry,” who had an indirect huge interest in Winning Clause Limited’s deal, frustrated the committee’s assignment. Since then, it has been one problem or another. First, the house owners were asked by Winning Clause to pay N1 million for “regularisation” of their titles, which most of the house owners did. At another time, each property owner was asked to pay N350, 000 for hammer test, and we did. We were told the money running into millions of naira was meant for some officials of Development Control to enable them fast-track the building plan approval. But we have since discovered that the woman collected nearly N2 billion from us under false pretence.
Just a few months ago, Winning Clause caused its lawyer to write some house owners, demanding payment of huge bill of N20 million to N35 million from them or face court action. Winning Clause said the payment included outstanding payments and the interest associated with it. As we write over 52 home owners are in court with her.
Winning Clause’s illegal allocation
Our investigations later revealed that Winning Clause Limited got the allocation through the “backdoor,” with the help of the then minister. The company lacks the “technical-know-how and financial capacity” to execute a mass housing project, in line with the Mass Housing Department’s guidelines. Winning Clause is just a mere land speculator. All the facilities in the estate so far were carried out by the house owners; Winning Clause has not added anything to the estate.
Okwubanego’s many lies
In the interview, she claimed that Mr. Uwugiaren was not one of the subscribers. But the same woman had filed a suit in Abuja High Court 21, saying that Uwugiaren has refused to pay her N19 million as land fee. There is a huge inconsistency in her interview. The interest of Mr. Uwugiaren, who was the former Chairman of the Residents Association, like other residents, is to ensure that the right thing is done by the appropriate authorities to safeguard their properties. Nothing more.
The current situation
In our recent petition to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Alhaji Muhammad Musa Bello, the Inspector-General of Police and the Department of State Services, over the invasion of the estate by some gunmen, the house owners drew the attention of the authorities to the “unwholesome development,” which we said the estate developer had foisted on us in the past few months.
We became alarmed when the management of the estate relieved the security company we contracted for the estate and unilaterally employed an “unknown company,” whose staff members no one could vouch for. Sadly and suddenly, we recall that some high profile and yet unresolved dangerous robbery attacks started taking place, and this includes but not limited to two dangerous attacks on home of the association’s general secretary, Mr. Taiwo Adisa. The matter was reported to the police. Indeed, we recall that some members of the task force created by the estate developer have been interrogated by the Gwarinpa Police Station while the police were investigating one of the robbery attacks.
Again, on May 28, last year, a house owner, who owns House A35 at the estate, Mr. Okonkwo, reported that some people invaded his premises and beat up his private security guard. The incident was reported to the Gwarinpa Police Station. And Mrs. Okwubanego was later arraigned before Abuja Magistrate’s Court and she is currently facing criminal charges.
Dispute over ownership of the estate
Recently, we received a letter from legal counsels, O. D Okeke & Associates (situated at Suite 401, Midel Centre, Plot 14, off Oladipo Diya Way, Abuja) to one Mrs. Halimat Abdulazeez, which has effectively placed a caveat on Winning Clause Limited. The woman, Mrs. Abdulazeez, said she was the rightful owner of Winning Clause Limited. Indeed, our recent checks at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) revealed that Mrs. Okwubanego is actually not a director of the company and we have confronted her with this fact, but she refused to provide any concrete answers. The house owners feared that they might have paid money to an impostor under false pretences.
Our investigations have revealed that the company initially registered its office as Sapele Street, NSPMC Quarters, Garki II, Abuja (a residential building), and later 6B, Senanga Street, off Accra Street, Wuse Zone 5 (office of its former Lawyer, Barr. PIN Ikwueto, SAN). Currently, it has no office in town, except the one it occupies in our estate. Our members are becoming apprehensive that dealing with a company without a visible office in town and any known address could place them in disadvantage. That is why we recently asked the EFCC to investigate the business activities of the woman.
In fact, in the CAC documents, one Mr. Ayah is registered as MD. Now we have Mrs. Okwubanego and lately, we have been told that one Mrs. Safinat Emengo and Mr. Tony Emengo are the consultants to the Winning Clause. Whereas the documents submitted to CAC named the trio of Francis Ayah, Mrs. Felicia Owei Phillip and Christopher Ayah as directors of the company and Francis D. Ayah (of NSPMC Quarters, Garki II) as Managing Director, the person we have seen since 2011 is Mrs. Okwubanego, while thus far, she has not shown us any letter, linking her to the company or mandating her to serve.
Right now, the said Mrs. Okwubanego and Winning Clause had, through various accounts in, at least, four banks, collected about N2 billion from our members.
Our members have also paid, at least, N70 million as infrastructure fees for which the company has refused to give account after failing to undertake the infrastructural development the money was paid for.
Our fear is that besides the said N2 billion the company had collected as land charges, the money collected under the guise of infrastructure could go down the drain if the activities of the company are not checked.
The following accounts – being operated by Winning Clause: Zenith Bank No. 1013260014; United Bank for Africa No. 1018229182; Heritage Bank No. 5100154481; Heritage Bank N0. 5100211533; Diamond Bank No. 0075600939, and Access Bank No. 0718901620 were used to collect the money from the house owners.
This is our case. And we hope we have a “right of reply” in line with the practice of sound journalism.
• Aliyu is the Public Relation Officer of Winning Clause Estate Residents Association.