Bank Set To Sell Lawyer’s Property To Settle Debt

The property of a Lagos lawyer, Mr. Francis Sunday Ogundana, situated at Plot 230, Q Close, 21 Road, Second Avenue, FESTAC Town, Lagos, South West Nigeria, may be sold by Wema Bank in order to liquidate a debt of N58,154,077.46 if the court accedes to the request of the bank.

Mr. Sunday Ogundana was alleged to have used the property as security for a loan obtained by his son, Mr. Babafemi Oluwalana and his company, Printhaus Limited, from Wema Bank.

Meanwhile, a Lagos High Court has ordered that Mr. Francis Sunday Ogundana who was not a party to a suit instituted by his son against Wema Bank, be joined as the third defendant in a counter-claim filed against the son by the bank.

According to a statement of claim filed before the court by Mr. Sunday Ogundana on behalf of his son, Babafemi Oluwalana and his company, what led to this legal hostility started sometimes in August 2005, when Prunthaus Company applied for and was granted a loan of N64 million to purchase a printing machine.

However, the claimants averred that the repayment schedules to the letters of offer were excessively manipulated and inconsistent with the loan as the fees stipulated in the letters were not only illegal and unlawful but against and violate the Central Bank of Nigeria’s guidelines to set charges effective from 1 January, 2004.

The claimant averred further that he was arrested by security operatives on 28 September, 2009 and forced to issue a post-dated cheque of N15 million in settlement of the outstanding loan facility under duress despite his complaint that there was no money in the account.

On 15 December, 2009, he was invited by the police at Special Fraud Unit, Ikoyi, where he was confronted with a petition written against him, complaining about the issuance of a dud cheque. Thereafter, he filed a fundamental enforcement suit at the Federal High Court to enforce his right and since then, the bank has been using security agents as debt collector to harass him.

Consequently, the claimant, while urging the court to restrain the bank and its agents from further harassing him, is claiming N30 million being unlawful interference with his economic and other business interests.

He also wants the court to declare that the interest rate claimed by the bank on its loan account had not been calculated on the agreed interest rate as stipulated in the bank’s letter of offer.

In its statement of defence and counter-claim filed before the court on behalf of Wema Bank by Barrister Abidemi Oladigbolu, the bank, while denying almost all the averments, alleged that the plaintiffs were granted equipment lease facility of N64 million in May 2004, to purchase printing machine and as at July 2005, the outstanding balance of N70,264,350.55 of the facility was converted to a term loan of 36-month tenure due to non-performance.

At the expiration of the facility, the bank was constrained to brief its recovery agent to recover the debt.

It was further alleged that it was in the process of persuading the bank for more time to pay by the claimants as they claimed they had put in the market for sale a property at a choice area in Magodo, that the bank then persuaded the claimant to demonstrate and show good faith towards liquidation of the loan through the proceeds of the proposed sale by issuing a cheque in the sum of N15 million post-dated to 30 November, 2009, in anticipation of the sale which, according to Mr. Babafemi Oluwalana, was to be consumated on 30 November, 2009.

When the bank learnt that the claimant had disposed of one of his properties as stated above, the N15 million cheque was presented but returned unpaid and the bank therefore had no choice than to report the criminal issue of the issuance of dud cheque to teh Special Fraud Unit of the police.

The bank then contended that the claimant’s action is vexatious, misconceived and an abuse of court process which should be dismissed with substantial cost in view of the fact that total indebtedness of the claimant as at 28 May, 2010 stood at N58,154,077.46.

In its counter-claim, the bank is seeking the following reliefs: the total sum of N58,154,077.46 being the principal sum plus the accrued interest; a declaration that the defendants to the counter-claim, that is, Printhaus Company Limited, Babafemi Oluwalana and Francis Sunday Ogundana, have created an enforceable equitable mortgage in favour of Wema Bank in respect of Mr. Sunday Ogundana’s property at Plot 230, Q Close, 21 Road, Second Avenue, FESTAC Town, Lagos, by virtue of execution of a Deed of Tripartite Legal Mortgage yet to be perfected as security for the facility granted to the company by the bank; an order granting leave to Wema Bank to sell immediately the property to enforce the aforementioned securities and to realise the principal amount plus accrued interest found to be owed to the bank by the claimants.