The Federal High Court in Lagos on Wednesday heard that a businessman,\u00a0 Mr Jimoh Ibrahim, paid only a part of the retirement benefits of former directors of\u00a0 Newswatch Communications Ltd. which he acquired.<\/p>\n
A former Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mr Ray Ekpu, made the claim\u00a0 while giving evidence in a suit filed by two minority shareholders of the company.<\/p>\n
The shareholders \u2013 Mr Nuhu Wada and Prof. Jibril Aminu — are challenging the method through which Ibrahim acquired the majority shareholding of the company.<\/p>\n
During cross examination by Ibrahim\u2019s counsel, Chief Bolaji Ayorinde (SAN), Ekpu said that Ibrahim cheated him by refusing to pay him a balance of N30 million of his retirement benefits.<\/p>\n
“The sum of N79 million was paid to me out of N109 million.<\/p>\n
“During his meeting with me and four other directors, he called on the accountant who read the figures to us.<\/p>\n
“The figures were less than what we expected to be paid and we had since submitted our request for regularisation to the board on May 5, 2011.<\/p>\n
“When we told him that the figures were less than what we expected, he said that that was the only money available.<\/p>\n
“He just paid us what he wanted and still insisted on collecting 10 per cent as tax, the receipt of which he never gave us,” Ekpu testified.<\/p>\n
He said that efforts to make Ibrahim to pay the balance through correspondences yielded no result.<\/p>\n
The defence counsel,\u00a0 Ayorinde, consequently tendered as exhibits, copies of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) containing the names of other companies under the Newswatch group.<\/p>\n
The MoU also disclosed how much was paid to other directors.<\/p>\n
Justice Ibrahim Buba adjourned the case to March 18 for continuation of trial.<\/p>\n
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the plaintiffs filed the suit on Jan. 17.<\/p>\n
They are seeking, among other reliefs, an order to quash a share purchase agreement which transferred the ownership of the company to Ibrahim.<\/p>\n
Newswatch Communications Ltd., Global Media Mirror Ltd., Newswatch Newspapers Ltd. and the Corporate Affairs Commission are joined as co defendants in the suit. (NAN)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Federal High Court in Lagos on Wednesday heard that a businessman,\u00a0 Mr Jimoh Ibrahim, paid only a part of the retirement benefits of former directors of\u00a0 Newswatch Communications Ltd.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n