24A, 24B Aba/Owerri Road: Counsel Defends Ribiza Deal, Challenges Authority of Disputed 2014 Resolution

Counsel to the claimants in the legal dispute over the sale of 24A and 24B Aba/Owerri Road, Aba, Tochukwu Anaba, Esq., has defended the transaction involving Ribiza Hotels & Resort Limited, insisting that the sale was backed by corporate records, written authority and duly executed transaction documents.

Anaba, of Leftwing Solicitors, said attempts to portray the transaction as an unauthorised sale of First Atlantic Investment Company Limited’s property were misleading, arguing that the documentary history showed that the parties acted on the authority available to them at the material time.

He said the controversy arose from an internal dispute over the ownership, directorship and control of First Atlantic Investment Company Limited and should not be retrospectively transformed into a criminal case against a third-party purchaser.

According to him, he was formally invited to Lagos on September 4, 2023, at the instance of Mr Nnanyeremugo Nwachukwu and Mrs Uchechi N. Evoh and was subsequently appointed Attorney and Solicitor to First Atlantic Investment Company Limited.

The appointment, he said, was executed by both Evoh and Nwachukwu at the company’s corporate office at No. 13 Biaduo Street, Ikoyi, Lagos.

Anaba said the mandate expressly covered the company’s properties at 24A and 24B Aba/Owerri Road and authorised him to take steps concerning the recovery, protection and management of the company’s assets.

He described Nwachukwu’s alleged role in the appointment as significant because the same individual is now challenging the authority under which the transaction was conducted.

“He cannot simply erase the fact that on the 4th of September 2023 he personally joined in executing the instrument appointing me to act for First Atlantic Investment Company Limited in relation to the company’s assets,” Anaba said.

He added that a Corporate Affairs Commission status report obtained on July 19, 2023, identified Mrs Evoh, Mr Chijioke Onuoha and Mr G. C. Okogbue among the directors of the company.

The lawyer also disputed suggestions that the properties were secretly offered to Ribiza Hotels.

He said O.J. Vital Services Limited had earlier emerged as a prospective purchaser of the same property but failed to complete the transaction after allegedly failing to make payment within the agreed period.

Anaba further alleged that subsequent events indicated that O.J. Vital Services Limited was being used as a vehicle for the interests of Nwachukwu and Onuoha.

He argued that the change in the identity of the eventual purchaser was at the heart of the present controversy.

“Had the property ultimately been sold to O.J. Vital Services Limited, which we contend was fronting the interests of Mr Nwachukwu and Mr Onuoha, it is difficult to believe that the authority of Mrs Evoh or the corporate process surrounding the sale would now have become the subject of this sustained challenge,” he said.

According to him, the objection to the process became pronounced only after O.J. Vital failed to complete the transaction and Ribiza Hotels subsequently emerged as purchaser.

He said the eventual transaction was documented by a Deed of Sale which, according to him, remains registered at the Abia State Lands Registry, Umuahia.

Anaba said the challenge to Evoh’s authority ultimately rested on a purported corporate resolution dated December 1, 2014, which allegedly altered the company’s corporate structure and displaced Evoh’s authority.

He, however, questioned the authenticity of the resolution, particularly because a signature attributed to the late Godfrey Chima Okogbue allegedly appears on documentation connected with the 2014 corporate changes.

“How could a person who died in April 2013 participate in or execute a corporate resolution in December 2014?” he queried.

He further stated that Evoh had maintained that her signature on the disputed corporate documentation was forged.

“These are not peripheral issues. They go directly to the foundation of the competing claim to corporate authority now being asserted against Mrs Evoh and, consequentially, against the sale to Ribiza Hotels,” he said.

The lawyer also alleged that Nwachukwu and Onuoha admitted before the Police that they did not see Evoh sign any document removing her as a director of the company.

Anaba also relied on a Police Investigation Report dated August 14, 2024, which he said recorded the arrest and interrogation of Nwachukwu and Onuoha following allegations bordering on conspiracy, forgery, threats of violence and conduct likely to cause a breach of peace.

He said the report indicated that the investigation disclosed a case against the suspects and that forensic examination confirmed that Evoh’s specimen signature submitted for examination had been forged.

He stressed, however, that the allegations and findings remained subject to determination through the appropriate judicial process.

According to him, the existence of the disputed corporate documents makes it inappropriate to present them as unquestionably authentic while using them as the basis for attacking the Ribiza transaction.

The counsel insisted that Ribiza Hotels should be treated as a third-party purchaser that entered the transaction based on representations and corporate documentation presented by those acting for First Atlantic.

“Ribiza Hotels did not create the dispute within the First Atlantic. It did not create the company’s corporate records. It did not appoint Mrs Evoh as a director. It did not appoint me as a Solicitor. It did not manufacture the corporate authority presented by those acting for First Atlantic,” he said.

He argued that it would be fundamentally wrong to convert an internal struggle for corporate control into an allegation of wrongdoing against a purchaser merely because another faction subsequently challenged the authority under which the transaction was concluded.

Anaba also rejected suggestions that a Federal High Court judgment being relied upon by opponents of the transaction had conclusively settled all the issues.

He noted that the judgment is being challenged in Appeal No. CA/LAG/CV/1000/2025 and that the appellate process remains pending.

He therefore urged all parties to allow the courts to determine the competing claims based on authentic corporate records, admissible evidence and the applicable law.

“The validity of the sale to Ribiza Hotels cannot be determined by propaganda,” he said. “It must be determined by examining the authentic corporate records, the authority existing at the material time, the transaction documents, the evidence surrounding the disputed resolution and the applicable law.”

Anaba also questioned what he described as a contradiction in the position of those challenging the transaction, saying they had raised allegations of fraud and forgery while simultaneously seeking to restrain the Police from investigating the underlying issues.

“If, as they contend, there is nothing to investigate, why seek an order preventing the Police from investigating?” he asked.

He argued that there was no legal basis for assuming that the filing of a criminal charge automatically prevented the Police from continuing an investigation where further evidence might be required.

According to him, persons confident of their innocence should welcome an investigation aimed at establishing the truth.

“Truth does not fear investigation; it submits to evidence and survives scrutiny,” he said.

Anaba maintained that the transaction could not be invalidated through newspaper publications or public accusations.

He said the parties challenging the sale must explain the circumstances surrounding the disputed 2014 resolution, the signatures attributed to individuals who allegedly could not have executed the document, Nwachukwu’s participation in the September 2023 appointment and why the transaction became objectionable only after Ribiza Hotels emerged as the eventual purchaser.

He further alleged that attempts had been made to sell the property through what he described as a clandestine court process, which he said was successfully aborted.

The counsel maintained that Mrs Evoh acted on the corporate authority and records available to her, while he acted pursuant to a written mandate from First Atlantic, which Nwachukwu himself signed.

He said Ribiza Hotels acquired the property pursuant to transaction documents executed in consequence of the authority presented by those acting for the company.

“We will defend this position without equivocation even before God, and no amount of blackmail or intimidation will change this position.”

“Time may delay the triumph of truth, but it can never defeat it. Truth will prevail, and we shall live to witness the day it does,” Anaba concluded.