By E. Ezuka
I have followed with interest the case of what
appears to be an attempted blackmail by your client, Mr. Benjamin Josephof Citadel
Oracle Concepts Limited, an Ibadan-based ICT retail firmagainst the Zinox
Chairman, Mr. Leo Stan Ekeh, his wife, TD Africa and staff and Access Bank Plc.
for some time now as a disinterested observer. However, I was recently moved to
take an interest in the case after a lawyer friend of mine went to great
lengths to verify from the facts on ground from the respective authorities.
Now, I am moved to comment following what I consider an unacceptable media
slander to denigrate the character of the Zinox owner.
The only sin Mr. Ekeh’s company committed is
extending documented interest-free credit facility to your client when he
couldn’t fund an ITsupply business which the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS)
awarded his company and 12 other companies. After the FIRS paid all suppliers
funded by Technology Distributions Ltd. (TD Africa), other companies paid TD
the invoice sum of the laptops supplied on credit to them as agreed.
However, your client tried to divert TD’s fund.
It is important to state here that your
client’s application for credit was initially rejected based on lack of credit
history with TD. However, his partner, Princess Kama and her uncle, one Chief
Onny Igbokwe, a long-time customer of TD’s, intervened on his behalf.
Therefore, when he tried to hold back remitting
the funds for the laptops supplied on credit by TD, his partner, Princess Kama
who, handled the transaction on behalf of his company(he issued a letter of authority
to Princess Kama as his company’s legal representative and submitted it with a copy
of his passport to the FIRS)refused as the credit was guaranteed byChiefIgbokwe.
After TD was paid, your client Benjamin Joseph started fighting his partner, Princess
Kama, on profit share which lasted two years and was at a point handled by a
distinguished lawyer – Chief Afe Babalola – who pleaded with Princess Kama to consider
increasing the profit share due to Benjamin Joseph a little bit, but your
client wanted all.
It was at this point that your client changed
the story that he was not aware of the contract and that his company was used
to defraud the FIRS, adding that nothing was supplied to the FIRS. This, I
understood, was inorder to try and blackmail the owners of TD to extort money
from the company. He sponsored some fake press releases against the Zinox Chairman,
his wife and Access Bank so that he could have access to Mr. Ekeh. When he
visited Lagos from Ibadan to meet Mr.Ekeh on one occasion, the Zinox Chairman
refused to see him because he was classified a blackmailer.
Your client had initially reported the case to
the Police Special Fraud Unit (SFU) Milverton Road, Ikoyi. The SFU conducted
investigations and indicted him on the basis that a forensic analysis report
stated that he signed the board resolution which he said was forged. He
thereafter lodged another petition to the Police Headquarters, Abuja, who after
investigations and confirming that he was lying, charged him to court in 2016
in suit CR/216/2016 (IGP vs. Benjamin Joseph) for false information before
Honourable Justice Peter Kekemeke. The Police (Prosecution) has since closed
their case since 2018 and your client is supposed to open his defence.
Instead of defending himself, he is running
around with your help, to have the Attorney General to discontinue the criminal
case against him. My investigation at the Ministry of Justice revealed that your
chambers once applied to the AG with a letter dated November 1, 2018, for a
Fiat, which you invariably wanted to use to discontinue the criminal
proceedings against Benjamin Joseph, so that he would not defend the criminal
charges against him. But the AG refused that your 2018 application. Thereafter,
your client went to procure some spurious “reports” said to have been made in
2015 and in 2020, which you, again, used to apply for another Fiat.
But my further investigations at the Force
Headquarters Abuja shows that the Police have, by a comprehensive report dated
December 1, 2020, discredited and disclaimed all those “reports” which your
client is parading and with which you tried to get the Honourable AG to grant
you a Fiat in May 2022. However, when the AG further reviewed the file and saw
through the discrepancies in your application for the Fiat, the AG reversed
himself and issued a new letter to the Police dated 6th June 2022, directing
the Police to prosecute your client, Benjamin Joseph, to a logical conclusion.
For instance, your chambers failed to disclose to the AG that there is a
subsisting judgment of the FCT High Court in Suit No. FCT/HC/CR/244/2018, given by Honourable
Justice Danlami Senchi on 24th February 2021, against your client to pay
N20million as damages for false petitioning and to serve as a deterrent against
persons who would give Police or the EFCC false information as your client did.
This was following the petition your client made on same set of facts and
allegations to the EFCC through the Vice President.
Yet, you are applying for Fiat to prosecute the same persons your client is asked by a subsisting judgment to pay N20million as damages! That same judgment absolved these same persons of all the allegations made by your client.
I would also like to point out that the Federal
Government, through the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and
Inspector General of Police have instructed the court to prosecute your client,
Mr. Benjamin Joseph to logical conclusion, with letters dated 6th June, 2022
and 26th September, 2022 respectively, for false information at the FCT High
Court, before Honourable Justice Peter Kekemeke. Yet, the latest release being
circulated by your client states that you are filing charges against Mr. Ekeh,
Mrs. Ekeh, Chris Eze Ozims, Shade Oyebode and other persons named in the
publications. Meanwhile, your client was
in court on the 27th of September 2022 and the letter of the AG dated 6th June
2022 and the letter of the IGP dated 26th September 2022, to continue the
prosecution of your client were already in the court file. Your client was
called upon to give evidence for his defence. He could not defend himself but
rather sought an adjournment.
Yet, your client quickly rushed to the press on
the 29th (2 days after) to blackmail innocent persons with reckless allegations
contained in various online publications. All these acts are capable of making
one believe that they are not directed to meet the ends of justice but just to
embarrass and humiliate Mr. Ekeh, the Chairman of Zinox, his wife, and his
staff.
It is libellous to insinuate that a
distinguished tech entrepreneur who has built the largest ICT group on the
continent, as well as his wife and few others have been indicted by Police and
EFCC. It is all false. The release indicated that the Police SFU and the EFCC
indicted Mr. Ekeh, Mrs. Ekeh, Mr. Ozims, Mrs. Oyebode, Mr. Adigwe. Could you
please release these reports from the SFU and the EFCC to the public for us to
read? I have made enquiries at EFCC and the Police Headquarters to confirm this
claim and both confirmed there was no such invitation and indictment. The
spurious Police reports which your client is parading were not made by the SFU
who investigated the case. Your client rather procured a certain “report” from
a Police agency in Abuja, which did not investigate the case and whichthe
Police Headquarters Abuja has disclaimed in their FINAL report dated 1st
December 2020 on this matter. Yet, your client is parading these fake and
discredited reports. I am sure you know that your client who reported cases has
been unable to substantiate and defend the case he reported at the courts till
date and is instead begging the Attorney General to withdraw the case. I have
taken the pains to give you specific dates of letters and reports and
particulars of all the cases, to demonstrates the truthfulness of my findings.
Anybody can thus verify them.
For your information, Technology Distributions(TD
Africa) which is run by Mrs Chioma Ekeh,a first-rate Mathematician, FCA, MBA is
the largest ICT products distribution company in the sub- Saharan Africa and
has arevolving credit to ICT vendors of $75m in the last eight years. This was
why your client could be extended an interest-free credit to execute the job for
which he could not secure a bank loan. Mr. Ekeh and his Board are persons of
integrity and please feel free to confirm this from industry players. Yet, he
sponsored a publicationwhich states that12 persons including Access Bank
conspired to defraud him of N170m. Are they hungry as to collectively tarnish
their integrity with a mere N170m contract?
Indeed, your client owesan apology to Mr. Ekeh,
a serial digital entrepreneur and well-known promoter of trust economy and digital
democracy, who I consider the main target in this charade. Let me share a few
facts. In the last 35years, he has built the largest ICT group in Africa
with companies in four continents without borrowing a kobo or owing any bank
for that matter(please check with Nigerian banks). He believes he is a child of
trust economy and has succeeded with it. His companies have executed the
biggest ICT projects in Africa and some Arab countries and so not desperate to
cheat any person. His companies also employ thousands of quality Nigerian staff.
He may be extremely humble but not stupid.
Mr. Ekeh enjoys the privilege of being the only
African with revenge insurance(please check global database if you are given
access). He is humble to a fault and that is why he is tolerating your client.
He once told his friend after investigating your client with paid foreign
detectives that Mr. Joseph is broke and working as small blackmailer for
competitors to some of his companies and that it was a waste of time looking in
his direction.
Finally, Mr. Falana, I would like you to ask
that if the claim made by your client in that publication are substantiated, please
publish the court, Police and EFCC report that indicted Mr. Ekeh, his wife, and
all the other names mentioned including Access Bank. If you have this evidence,
I shall apologize to you publicly for seeing the publication by your client as
a cheap blackmail.
I believe that irrespective of how long it takes, justice will eventually have its way in this long-drawn case.
By E. Ezuka wrote in from Lagos.
*The opinion expressed here is that of the writer and the Publisher does not take responsibility of the consequences of the article - Editor.
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