By Esther Onyegbula

LAGOS — Detectives from Force Criminal Investigation Department, FCID, Abuja at the weekend said they were on the trail of a Lagos State gubernatorial aspirant on the platform of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, Mr Babatunde Gbadamosi and his wife, Shade, over alleged property scam.

The couple, who runs Redbricks Homes International Limited, are said to be evading detectives who are investigating a case of criminal breach of trust.

Gbadamosi, however, told Vanguard that the allegation was not only unfounded but a calculated attempt to tarnish his image.

It was learnt that the detectives, after securing warrant of arrest from the FCID, Lagos and other necessary documents needed to effect the arrest were denied entry into Amen Estate by Mobile Policemen from Squadron 49, guarding the estate on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.

The genesis

According to Edojah’s petition to the FCID, “sometime in 2013, Gbadamosi accompanied by his wife approached Hon Solomon Edojah with an offer to purchase a fully furnished seven-bedroom detached house at Amen Estate, Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos for N93 million.

“The terms of the offer included a scheduled payment plan over periodic instalments within one year. It was agreed that fixtures of certain quality and specifications will be used in the interior and exterior finishing of the property as contained in the offer letter.”

Based on this understanding, Edojah said he agreed to purchase the property for his daughter and consequently commenced payment with an initial deposit of N25 million and has not defaulted on any of the instalments.”

Discrepancies

Trouble, as gathered, started sometime in February 2014, after Edojah visited the property to observe the extent of work only to discover that the fixtures being installed were below the agreed specifications.

According to Edojah, “immediately I alerted Mrs. Gbadamosi to the discrepancies and a meeting was scheduled at her instance.

“At the meeting on July 20, some of the substandard fixtures were itemized and it was agreed that those substandard fixtures already installed be removed and their cost deducted from the original price of the property.

‘’These calculations were done by Mrs Gbadamosi with the assurance that the already installed Chinese tiles will be replaced with the earlier agreed granite and marble before the next instalment was made.

“Unfortunately, what actually began as a mutual transaction between both parties eventually turned sour irretrievably.

“In line with the payment schedule, the next instalment was due by July 31, 2014 and in view of this I wrote a letter to Mrs. Gbadamosi with the intention of formalising the agreements but they refused to respond to the said letter and have consistently avoided and shut doors to any possible discussions.

“Mrs Gbadamosi in furtherance of her ill motives refused to pick up the cheque for the July instalment as was the previous practice. To avoid falling foul of the agreed schedule, I forwarded a cheque for the outstanding balance less the agreed deductions to Mrs Gbadamosi but she directed one Emmanuel Edward (her security staff) to reject the cheque and has been avoiding me since then.

N53,615,000 paid

“I have paid a cumulative sum of N53,615,000 towards the purchase of the property leaving a balance of N39,385, 000.

He alleged that these antics by Mr and Mrs Gbadamosi are geared towards fraudulently depriving him of the peaceable enjoyment of the property he laboured to pay for.

Allegation false — Gbadamosi

When Vanguard contacted Gbadamosi on phone, he described the allegation as unfounded, false and a calculated attempt to tarnish his image.

He said Mr Edojah only tried to purchase a property in Amen Estate located at Ibeju-Lekki.

According to him,“he is trying to purchase the property. At a point he started insisting that we change some of the fixtures to a point where the property started losing the primary concept and we decided to refund his money to him.

“He told us that if we could not meet up with the contract, we should refund his money. What else does he want? Where is this false allegation coming from? We didn’t defraud him, rather we have refused to sell anymore.”

In an attempt to set the records straight, he said: “The reason why I couldn’t see the detectives from Abuja is because I was very busy; I had to go to Abuja on emergency.

“Moreover, what we had was a commercial transaction, and there is no fraud here because his money has been returned to him in full.

“We paid N47 million plus to his account. We will resolve the involvement of the police when I get to Abuja tomorrow. I will be seeing the DIG tomorrow because this is a commercial transaction.”

“We decided to refund his money because we couldn’t go ahead with the alterations he wanted, because if we do it will be in contravention of the law of Lagos State.”