The Controvery On AMEN CENTRE In Abesan, Alimosho; The True Story

AMEN Centre, Abesan

The controversy over the status of the AMEN centre, that is the land that housed former Dareta might have come to an end with the outcome of the report of a 7-man fact-finding committee set up by AERA to look into the status of the building.

Issues on the building and project started about two years ago when there was news the place had been sold to a developer. Abesan Youths under the body of Abesan Estate Youth Resident Association; AEYRA, at that time protested that they heard the place was sold and were not happy with the development. This issue caused the youths to openly confront the executives of Abesan Estate and though the executives gave an explanation of what they did with the place, it was not a satisfactory explanation as far as the youths were concerned. In an interview published in Abesan News on January 2014, the president of Abesan Estate Youth Resident Association now known as Abesan Youth Forum; AYF, said the document to the property could not be accessed by both the Youths and some Chairmen of sectors in Abesan Estate, a situation that was unacceptable as the project was supposed to be a public one.

At a particular general meeting of AERA early in 2015, the confrontation was so much from the Youths that it was decided that a panel be set up to look into the state of affairs of the project and to determine if the place was sold as alleged. That event brought about the set up of the 7-man fact finding committee.

A letter dated 15^th April, 2015, signed by both the president of Abesan Estate Residents Association, AERA, and the Secretary General, Elder Afolabi S.O and Mr. E. Williams respectively, and addressed to members of the constituted 7-man fact-finding committee, gave the terms of preference as “Determine the present status of the on-going (i.e. under construction) of the AMEN Centre at L/S Bus Stop; to find out whether the AMEN Centre has been sold or not; to determine the authenticity of the agreement signed and to what extent Abesan Estate remains the owners of the AMEN Centre.” The letter named the members of the committee as Mr. Clarkson Biayebio, Mr. Adebayo Isaac, Barrister M.A. Sanni, Comrade Openiyi and Mr. O. Lewis. Others are Mr. Goodluck James and Mr. Olufemi Odeyemi.

The committee went into action immediately with Barrister M.A Sanni serving as Chairman and Mr. Olufemi Odeyemi as the Secretary. This is the full report of the committee as presented to AERA on Friday May 08, 2015:

REPORT OF THE

7-MAN FACT-FINDING COMMITTEE SET UP BY AERA TO DETERMINE THE PRESENT STATUS OF AMEN CENTRE

OUR FINDINGS

1.                   To determine the present status of the on-going (i.e under construction) of the AMEN Centre at L/S Bus Stop.

(a)Paragraph 4, page 2 of the agreement makes it clear that LBIC is the owner of the property (Land).

Paragraph 4 states that “(a) The Lessor is the beneficial owner of the landed property known as and situate at Low Cost Housing Estate, Abesan, Lagos State comprising of a vast residential estate within which the property subject matter of this Agreement is situated and which is covered by Certificate of Occupancy dated 10^th day of May 1991 and registered as No 79 at Page 79 in Volume 1991 of the lands registry in the office at Ikeja, Lagos State.”

(b) Furthermore, a letter from LSDPC dated 1st December, 2008 gives ownership of same land to AERA having paid the total sum of Two hundred and fourteen thousand, Ninety six Naira, sixty kobo only (N214, 096, 60k)

(c) During our meeting with MD of LBIC, he agreed that the place belongs to AERA and that it was given with a letter seceding (sic) the place to AERA.  He said “The place has been seeded to AERA, what you need to do is advice AERA to do the documentation so we can sign it”.

2.                   To find out whether the AMEN Centre has been sold out or not.

(a)During our visitation to LBIC, The MD told us to quote him anywhere that it has not been sold. He said “I, Babajide Jinadu confirm to you that it has not been sold”

(b) The agreement we have and also saw with LBIC which we compared with ours (same), shows that the place was Leased and not sold.

     3.     Authenticity of the agreement signed and to what extent AERA remains the owners of the AMEN Centre.

The following are the contents of the agreement prepared by the Developer.

(a)               4^th paragraph gives ownership to LBIC

(b)              The project will have only one Estate Manager to manage the entire facility

(c)               The Lease may be renewed for additional 25 years after the first 25 years.

(d)              12 months for completion of the project.

On Authenticity of the agreement given to us by the president of AERA, Elder Afolabi,

(a)               The agreement is not dated,

(b)              No stamp duty since 2013,

(c)               Not registered with land registry as any agreement on land above 3 years must be registered with Land Registry.

(d)              No government consent

(e)               The parties that signed were not named for future reference. Their designation also not known.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Upon the above findings, we have the following recommendations:

(1)              There is need for a new agreement to indicate AERA as owners of the Property.

(2)              There is need to get the photocopy of the corporation certificate of the Developer to ascertain the company is registered.

(3)              We recommend AERA manages the 7 shops that belong to them

(4)              We recommend the annual 5% of net profit payable to AERA to be increased to 10%.

(5)              The renewal clause should be removed, if not, the agreement is 50 years.

(6)              The building allocated to AERA for meeting is small and the committee noted it when we visited the site. Though Mr. Bakare (LBIC) noted it also and said he has directed them to “break a wall”, we expect AERA to follow it up to a logical conclusion.

CONCLUSION

1.                   All documents belonging to AERA should be made public and not kept as a secret document to remove doubts in future.

2.                   We believe the documents that were not shown to people brought about the rumour and agitation in the society, causing unnecessary disagreement between the youths and AERA executives.

Finally, from all documents made available to us and what we heard when we visited LBIC, AERA is the owner of the Landed property and has leased it for 25 years after which it takes ownership of the land and the building (AMEN CENTRE) there.