Justice Peter Affen of the FCT High Court on Monday ordered a construction company to pay N19.4 million to one Mr Enoch Ojo as the balance of payment agreed upon to facilitate a road contract.

Affen held that the evidence before him proved  that the defendants refused to keep to the terms of the agreement made in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and orally too with the plaintiff.

“The plaintiff claim succeeds; accordingly judgment is hereby entered in favour of the plaintiff.

“The defendant shall forthwith pay to the plaintiff a sum of N19.4million being the outstanding balance from the sum of N24.4 million payable to the plaintiff for facilitating the award of road contract valued at N2.44 billion.

“The above sum will attract a judgment sum of 10 per cent with effect from today until liquidation of amount owed,” he held.

The Judge  held that the plaintiff’s evidence was not contradicted and that it was a common ground between the parties that the defendant paid N5 million made up of two cars and some cash to the plaintiff.

“There is nothing before me or suggested that the defendants are a charitable organisation that dole out payment in cash and kind to all and sundry.

“In taking to the avowal of the MoU, the second defendant may think that the first defendant  did not sign the MoU because he was out of the country on the alleged day.

“There is nothing before me to show that the 1st defendant was out of the country on that day as alleged,” Affen said:

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that on March 25, 2015, the plaintiff (Ojo) had instituted a suit against the defendants,Sassine Sayegh and his company Parson Service Engineering), for breach of contract.

The plaintiff had sought the order of the court compelling the defendants to pay him the outstanding balance of N19.4 million from the N24. 4 million agreed on for facilitating the award of  a road contract valued at N2.4 billion.

Ojo said that it was after much pressure that the defendants paid N5 million from the agreed sum of N24.4 million as a fee for the award of four roads contracts in Ekiti

The plaintiff had told the court that the agreement on the fee was made orally before it was later drafted as MoU on Dec. 23, 2013.