DN Tyre and Rubber Plc (formerly Dunlop Nigeria Plc) has sued a commercial bank and a Lagos church before a Lagos High Court, Ikeja, over alleged forceful takeover of its property at Oba Akran Avenue, Ikeja.
The claimant, among other reliefs, is praying the court to compel the defendants to pay it the sum of $14.6 million as damages and to restrain them from further entering, encroaching on or developing the land.
Joined as respondents in the suit are: The Registered Trustee of the Word of Power Global Ministries International (The Triumphant Christian Centre), Pastors Harriet Olubiyo and Akin Ayanwale.
Others are Lagos State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice and Lagos Land Use and Allocation Committee.
They were accused of playing different roles in the alleged illegal acquisition of 12,500 square metres from the claimant’s 20.22 acres at plot 23, Oba Akran Avenue, Ikeja.
According to the claimant, the bank allegedly set the machinery in motion for the alleged forceful acquisition of its property by calling up prematurely a loan facility and subsequently sold the land to the church.
However, the bank in its response absolved itself of any wrongdoing in the matter. In its consequential statement of defence, the bank stated that the claimant voluntarily offered the land to it, to liquidate its indebtedness.
Similarly, the church contended that, as at the time it took possession of the property, the claimant had neither legal or equitable interest to protect any longer in the property as it had voluntarily transferred it to the bank.
But the claimant, in its amended statement of claim, accused the bank of inducing it into the contract in which the purported transfer of property was affected on an “unsubstantiated excuse that it was a directive of the Central Bank of Nigeria.”
By Chinyere Obia
