Lagos Landlord To Face Court For N50m House Rent ... How He Duped 220 Nigerians

Wonder they say shall never cease as Lagos Landlord connived with developer to defraud 220 Nigerian of over 50 Million Naira house rent. Information reaching us from the grapevine has it that, the landlord whose real name is Ganiu Davies but popularly known as Gabovis has two land around Ojodu axis that he gave to developer to develop for him and also use it to rent so as to be able to recoup their money. We were told that the house is 27 room apartments but out of greediness the developer, we learnt rented it out to more than 220 people. According to one of the victims, Olaniyi Olaniran who is a staff of Globacom Communication, he said “I was introduced by an agent that he has an apartment in No 13 Bashiru Street Ojodu beside GTBank, Lagos. And I went to inspect the apartment. It was 27 rooms flat and I paid for two bedrooms flat. The total fund I paid was five hundred and forty thousand naira (540,000) some other pay 1million naira and the total money paid to them is over 50million naira after calculation. I was asked to come and collect the key to my apartment on a particular date, only for me to get there, I discover that other people have been given the same keys. So, we are over two hundred and twenty that was given just 27 keys. And it is a sad one because some of us have been homeless. Some of us stay in church, sleep in the office. Immediately we realized there is foul play, we try to reach the developer but they are nowhere to be found. And we reported the case to the police, Ojodu Police Station to be precisely but we find out that there is a foul play between the owner of the property and the police. The same thing happened when we got to Area F Police Station. In this case, we don’t trust the police, so we want the government to come to our rescue. I’ve paid them money since august last year and I was to move in last year November. The name of the owner is Ganiu Davies but popularly known as Gabovis, we met with him and he promised to give us back our money but he want the court to terminate the agreement he had with the developer first. Up till now, nothing is happening.  Also speaking on the issue was Mr. Benedict Onoha who is also a staff of MTN Nigeria, he said “I got to know about the apartment through a friend of mine who stay in the same street. But unfortunately, he was staying in smaller apartment and he decided to move into a bigger apartment at 18 Jide Taiwo Street Ojodu, Lagos. And as you can see, the same developer who perpetrated this illicit act at 13 Bashiru did the same thing at 18 Jide Taiwo Street Ojodu. There at Jide Taiwo, the list we have collected so far is 29 in number and it is amounted 8,120,000(eight million one hundred and twenty thousand) this man collected different amount of money from different people. I’ve paid 400,000. The receipt he issue to me is bearing Alhaji Abiodun Venture with fake address while he gave other people Strong Homes receipt with different false address. We got to know that it was the same developer because we pay to them in person and we all paid to the same person but they gave us different receipt. In fact, some paid directly to the landlord but he asked them to meet the developer for their receipt which they did. The initial 200,000 naira that I paid was paid cash which they issue me receipt, so when the melting pressure that I have balance up my money before I can pack in, I insisted that I won’t pay the total money until I get the key to the apartment. So, he try to convinced me on why I should paid the money that they actually need the money because they don’t have sufficient fund again to complete the building. After that, I paid another 100,000 naira twice into their IBTC account number making 400,000 naira. And behold, this man operates with different accounts, he has account with IBTC, First Bank, Diamond account and all these account has different names. So, we are asking the media because we know your job is to inform and correct norms within the society. We want you to help us tell the world about this scam and help us to draw this issue to the attention of the government. We need the intervention of the government because as it stands now it looks as if we have lose hope with the police because they are not helping us on this issue. With what they have done so far, the IPO who is in the criminal investigating department as of last week told us that, one of the accomplice has been charge to court and the court will sit on the 10^th of May 2013. We asked him, who and who accompany you to the court? At least, he defrauded, so people should follow him to the court to testify against him and that is why we are crying asking the government and media to assist us in exposing all these criminals.” Buttressing their point is Miss Blessing Nwaze, a final year student of the University of Lagos from the department of Business Admin saying “This issue has been going for a while now and we’ve reported so many authorized offices. Some legal places we know that can help us recoup our money but nothing has been done so far. Obviously, from the perspective where I’m seeing things from, this man known as Gabovis (Bolaji Davis) has his way around Lagos. Most of the times, before we go to most of these offices, we discovered that they give us little or no attention which means someone must have pay them to keep mute which we cannot pay. Even when we contributed 200,000 to pay one lawyer, Bar. Ubani, I heard he’s human right activist. To my surprise, he returned our money few days after we paid him the money saying that he can no longer fight the case for us. And this is someone who called himself a human right activist who is supposed to be fighting for the masses. Fine! We knew he used to be one of Baba’s lawyers but that does not mean he should not protect the interest of the masses. Now, Baba (Gabovis) in conjunction with the developers have connive together to dupe us. Now, Ubani has refused to fight for us, maybe Baba has paid him off, he gave us back our money and we collected it in good faith and we are praying to God that the government we be able to do something to so that justice will prevail. I paid 230,000 naira for a room self contain and that money was just for one year. I paid on the 11^th of February 2013 and I was asked to move in on the 28^th of the same month. On getting there, I saw crowd in front of the house as if they are having military training.” She concluded

Meanwhile, after all said and done we learnt Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) has directed them to Inspector general of Police to handle the case with immediate effect.