A few days after newspaper reports indicated that billionaire businessman, Jimoh Ibrahim, recorded a legal victory over Newswatch magazine, four non-executive directors of the publication have denied ever receiving N510 million share purchase price of the company.
In a statement yesterday, Messrs.’ Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese, Yakubu Mohammed and Soji Akinrinade, not only denied receiving payment but also pledged to press for justice.
The directors faulted the judgment Ibrahim earlier got, claiming that it was “given based on the fact that the judges misdirected themselves on the facts of the matter,” which they said “has since been contested by two of the shareholders of the company.”
According to them, “ Mr. Nuhu Wada Aruwa and Professor Jibril Aminu have asked the Supreme Court to rectify the error of the court below. Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim has done everything imaginable since 2011 to claim falsely 51 per cent shares of Newswatch Communications Limited, which he never paid for.”
Outlining what transpired, they said: “ On May 5, 2011, the directors of Newswatch Communications Limited signed a Share Purchase Agreement with Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim and his Global Media Mirror Limited for the sale of 51 per cent shares of Newswatch Communications Limited to him and his company. The share purchase price was N510 million, which he was to pay not later than May 5, 2011, the date of the completion board meeting.
Mr. Ibrahim never paid the said N510 million before that day; he never paid it on that day and he never paid it after that day. Up till today he has not paid for the said shares. But he has tried by hook and crook to own the shares of a company he never paid for.
“He took four of us, Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese, Yakubu Mohammed and Soji Akinrinade, to the Federal High Court, Lagos claiming that we had retired from the company on May 5, 2011 and we were no longer directors of the company. The truth of the matter is that we retired from the company and were reappointed as non-executive directors at the very meeting in which he was chosen as chairman of the board of the company.”
They said Ibrahim came to Newswatch newsroom “and told our staff that we had been reappointed as directors of the company. The news was published in several newspapers including his own National Mirror the next day May 6, 2011. Yet Mr. Ibrahim denied it.
“For the 15 months that the magazine was published with him as chairman our names were listed every week as directors of the company. We submitted certified true copies of the magazines to Justice Okon Abang who handled the case. Curiously, Justice Abang accepted Mr. Ibrahim as chairman but refused to accept us as directors, even though we were all listed as such in the same document.”
They stated that the judge, in the case over shares purchase, “showed open hostility in court to our lawyer, Mr. Kunle Oyesanya, SAN. We kept wondering what happened. When he gave his controversial judgment against the weight of evidence we went on appeal. The more intriguing part of his judgment was his claim that if Mr. Ibrahim had not paid for the shares we would not have made him chairman of the company. But the suit before him, which was initiated by Mr. Ibrahim was only about our directorship of the company and NOT about share purchase.”
The Newswatch directors said they would fight for their company, declaring: “If there is a judicial system in the world that gives someone’s property to another without documented proof of ownership then that system would have turned justice on its head. We believe that despite the rot in the Nigeria system there are still judges with conscience who will not sell their conscience for a mess of pottage.”