The Nation Newspaper

Tag: claim

  • Newswatch: Directors fault Ibrahim’s claim to majority stake ownership

    Four directors of the troubled news magazine, Newswatch, have faulted claims by businessman Jimoh Ibrahim that he has legitimately acquired majority shares in the company.

    They also denied the businessman’s claim that they were no longer directors of the company.

    Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese, Yakubu Mohammed and Soji Akinrinade, in a counter-affidavit in response to a suit filed by Ibrahim, said Ibrahim has consistently misrepresented facts in his claim to the ownership of the company.

    They admitted that parties actually entered a share purchase agreement.

    They faulted Ibrahim’s claim that he has acquired the company, contending that he and his company, Global Media Mirror Limited (GMML), failed to perform their obligations under the agreement.

    The directors accused Ibrahim of subverting the actual intention of parties to the agreement, alleging that he has not demonstrated any intention of growing the company, but rather has engaged in stripping its assets.

    They averred in the affidavit that by the agreement, Ibrahim and his company were required to pay N510million before May 5 last year, before they could take over the board of Newswatch and its management.

    The directors stated that Ibrahim and GMML failed to meet the requirement by May 5, but instead caused the money to be transferred on May 9 from “the account of another company – NICON Investment Limited – into a new account that he (the second plaintiff) had opened in the name of the first plaintiff (Newswatch Communications Ltd) without any board resolution of the first plaintiff and in respect of which he was the sole signatory.”

    They admitted resigning as executive directors at the completion meeting of May 5 last year, but that they were reappointed as non-executive directors, a development which explained why the magazine continued to retain their names as directors after the meeting.

    They denied Ibrahim’s claim that an Annual General Meeting of the company was held on August 20 this year. “We state categorically that Form CAC 7 filed at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) as well as Form CAC 2 and Form CAC 2.1 attached to the plaintiffs’ affidavit are contrived by the second and third plaintiffs (Ibrahim and GMML) as there was no meeting of the first plantiff (Newswatch) at all to that effect.”

    They stated that rather than perform their obligations under the agreement that would have enabled them take over the company as majority shareholders, Ibrahim and GMML allegedly hijacked the company to themselves and want to use the court to legalise their illegal actions.

    The directors have also filed a notice of preliminary objection to the suit.

    They argued that the suit disclosed no reasonable cause of action against them; that Ibrahim and his company do not have the authorisation of the first plaintiff to sue.

    Ibrahim is, by the suit, seeking to strip the four directors of their status and prevent them from declaring a trade dispute between him(with 51 percent stake) and the remaining shareholders (with 49 per cent stake).

    Justice Okon Abang has fixed hearing in the suit for December 3.

  • ACN lashes out at Presidency over claim on anti-graft battle

    The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) yesterday described as a product of poor thinking, the Presidency’s decision to blame the media for the “inaccurate claim” on the nation’s anti-corruption efforts, contained in the President’s 52nd anniversary speech. It said the action is worse than the original gaffe.

    ‘’It is lazy and irresponsible for handsomely-remunerated presidential aides to lift the claim of Nigeria’s supposed progress in the anti-corruption effort from a newspaper and insert such in a presidential speech without confirmation. But then anything is possible in a rookie presidency populated by apprentice aides,’’ the party said in a statement in Lagos by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

    ‘’It is even worse that those who committed this gaffe and made their principal and the entire country to look bad, justifying their action and, instead of owning up, shifting the blame to the so-called opposition media and the political opposition.

    What was the media supposed to do in the face of such egregious lies? Reinforce the lies to Nigerians and the entire world?

    And should the opposition have applauded such a spurious claim?’’ the party queried.

    ACN said in a global world with an almost instantaneous access to information, it costs nothing to ask Transparency International, the highly-responsive global coalition against corruption, to verify the claim reportedly made by a local newspaper. In the alternative, the various government agencies engaged in the battle against corruption, including the EFCC and the ICPC, could have been contacted.

    ‘’The point that is lost on these indolent aides is that every presidential speech is a reference document. Therefore, packing it with lies and unverified claims is totally condemnable, in addition to being a disservice to the President,’’ the party said.

    It advised the President’s aides who are engaged in communication or speech writing to take their job more seriously instead of running to the press at the slightest opportunity to lambast the opposition and denigrate the media, their latest whipping boy.

    ACN congratulated the media for spotting the lie that was apparently aimed at making a do-nothing Presidency to look good, saying it only shows that the fourth estate of the realm is alive to its constitutional responsibility.