In the report forwarded by Mr. Orilowo’s publicist, the Lagos born business mogul debunked the fraud and theft related cases against him, adding that he’s not on the run as declared by EFCC, so far he has not committed any offence to warrant running away from his fatherland.
He noted that he was miffed by the commission’s declaration because he could not understand what the interest of EFCC was, as no court of law has indicted him for any offence and no warrant arrest has ever been issued on him.
But, in a swift reaction by the commission on Monday, April 14, 2014, their spokesman, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren insisted that the socialite has a case to answer. He added that there is no reason for EFCC to malign his image because the issue between Orilowo and the body is not personal.
“There is nothing to respond to in that matter again. The man has been declared wanted by us. In that case, he is expected to make himself available for investigation on the allegation against him. This is not personal. In other words, why should we blackmail him? But, so far he is on our wanted list, he should come forward to clean himself of the allegation against him. He’s not guilty yet, we are not judging him and we can’t find him guilty when we have not heard his own side of the story. So, he should come forward to us instead of hiding, and reporting the matter to the media. If he doesn’t have a case to answer, we wouldn’t have declared him wanted. But, that doesn’t mean we have concluded that he is guilty.”
Asked if the commission had received a court letter through the wanted man’s lawyer, challenging the EFCC for blackmail, Mr. Wilson said, “I am not aware of that, but if there is any, the legal department would have notified us.”
Meanwhile, it’s Mr. Orilowo’s press release that explained the reason for his travails in the hands of the agency. According to him, the EFCC and MTN were only out to blackmail him because of the court case he instituted against EFCC, seeking an injunction to restrain the agency from arresting him or declaring him wanted, which was supposed to be determined on March 28, 2014. Yet, he was declared wanted on no basis many weeks before the hearing date.”
Explaining the issue further, Mr. Orilowo said, “There was this MTN Cooperative whose membership is of MTN workers. Their union came together with this idea of a project called Y’ello Estate to be built at Okun Ajah. That is my home town and where I do most of my business. So, based on my popularity and as a philanthropist who commands respect in the area, my company, Primavera Engineering & Construction Limited, was approached by MTN to help buy five hectares of land, which we did. Later, they came to us again and said oh, there are more demands, get us five hectares more. We did. The subscribers now became much interested in the project because they were going to make it the best of such estates in Lagos.
“We had an agreement from the beginning because they trusted us to deliver. The agreement was for me to; one, buy the lands; two, to ensure that the lands acquired were validly documented; and three, to be the sole developer of the estate”.
“But some powerful people at MTN then came in after the agreement with the aim to hijack it. They saw the project as a laudable one and they were shocked that I was the only man handling the project. They came with an excuse that many people were bidding for it and it should not be a one-man thing. But I had spent close to one billion naira on this project.
“The agreement was for me to collect from MTN 20 percent of the money for mobilization and then go ahead to complete it with my personal money. And I had spent a lot on it. You know how big a project like an Estate can be; talk of roads, bridges and other amenities.
“So, since the MTN had decided to bring in another developer and my company has committed so much into executing the project, I asked that the money I have spent so far be refunded. But when they were not forthcoming, I took the MTN Cooperative to court seeking to retrieve my money. We got judgment from Hon. Justice Olateru-Olagbegi. We then had negotiations with MTN based on the court judgment. Under the terms of settlement, MTN was to pay us substantial sum of money.
“But MTN still refused to pay us, so we commenced third-party involvement proceedings against MTN which resulted in the issuance of an order freezing the bank accounts of MTN. While we waited for action on our money, MTN went to EFCC to lodge criminal complaints against us, alleging theft of money without disclosing the court proceedings on the issue. This was after the EFCC, on its own, had gone to court to institute criminal proceedings against us based on MTN’s complaints, which is still pending before the court”.