Femi Solaja
Counsel to the parties in the ownership tussle over Star Orient Nigeria Limited, Agbafo & Co, has denied claims made by, Babatunde Babalola against his clients, Lanre Bamgbose and Isaaki Adewole in his publication in the media.
In a letter addressed to the Managing Director of THISDAY, he described the publication as injurious falsehood.
He said Babalola’s libelious claim is capable of affecting economic and business interest of the company.
According to the counsel, its clients have been wounded, traumatised, libeled and de-marketed by the publication of an article styled: “Babalola Debunks Claim on Ownership of Star Orient”, which was unabashedly and purposefully, thrust on the corporate and natural world to his clients.
“The said article which was purely a hatchet job with no pretense to objectivity, clearly sent out the tendentious falsehood that the Company has a shadow ownership arrangement by which it is controlled by a ghost individual, who is neither a shareholder nor a director and who is never visibly or directly involved in any financial transactions but owns and directs its affairs,”he said.
“By that portrayal, you implied that our client company is indeed a vehicle or artifice, for crime syndication and is not a bona fide corporate entity. That the company’s registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) is but a farce, in fact, a snare to the public, who will deal with information in the records of the CAC to their detriment because those registered as its owners are not owners and that fact is not disclosed — deliberately!.”
The counsel added: “That our clients: Lanre Bamgbose and Isaaki Adewole, are incompetent and fraudulent persons who have mismanaged the company and have put it in a state of ruin and decline; That the company is in receivership; That the company has lost all patronage and has been deliberately programmed to be wound up.”
