The majority shareholder of Next Foods Ltd, Ndibe Obi, who is the younger brother of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, has headed to the court to challenge the demolition of his property in Ikeja, Lagos.
Counsel to the company, Emeka Okpoko, SAN, said in an interview in Awka on Thursday that the court processes have already begun.
He said: “We will make an order to be joined as parties to the case and seek leave for processes to be amended to incorporate the name of our client. We have an application seeking to set aside that judgment.
“We have a leg seeking to stay further execution. There is another leg seeking an injunction pending the hearing of the substantive matter. We also have a leg where we are saying convert this originating summons into pleading so that parties can defend the matter and for the court to hear from both sides and form an opinion”.
Going down memory lane, Okpoko said the property was purchased in 2011 and the consent of the governor of Lagos State was granted in 2013, adding that the property never had issues until the recent developments.
He added: “The land belongs to a company called Next Foods Ltd. Peter Obi’s younger brother is the majority shareholder of that company.
“The deed of assignment chronicled the history of that property right from Western Nigeria when the land registry was at Ibadan. That was when the last owners sold it. Their predecessor died leaving no will.
“When this event unfolded last Friday, I was called upon that some people came to claim execution. I spoke to the gateman there to know what they came with and he said they did not come with anything. I said there was no way they could come without a paper and he eventually saw a paper they came with.
“I read through the Form 41 and it was even talking about N5,700 owed and the order was to recover goods and chattels. The original case was between Deborah Olonwulogbo vs Unknown persons. I asked the security man if he did any transaction of N5700 and he said he didn’t have any dealing with anybody.
“I said we needed to trace the origin and from the document, I could see the case number which enabled us to go to the registry to unravel what happened. We traced the matter to a particular court and obtained the certified true copy based on the processes filed in the matter.
“When we went through it, we discovered that she, Deborah, commenced an originating summons for interpretation where there would be no controversy. Also, the process was seeking for possession, not title.
“We went through the affidavit and discovered that there were squatters on the property and that she owned the property and traveled to look after her sick husband and when she came back, she saw the squatters.”
Okpoko said he could not blame the judge that delivered the case that prompted the demolition because, according to him, going through the file, we saw that there was a motion for substituted service to be pasted on the company.
“My thinking told me that what they did was to go to a hidden place and placed it. Probably after pasting it, they got someone to remove it.
“The court insisted that they served hearing notices by same substituted means. I will not blame the judge because he saw that the order he gave was effective”, he said.
According to Okpoko, “Judgement was given in 2024 and they waited until this June 2025 to come for execution, when it was supposed to have been executed within six months.
“We have filled our own processes to show that truly speaking, we are the owners of the property. Nobody served us and we did not know the pendency of the matter. All we saw was this demolition.
“These are the issues we will pontificate in court and I believe and convinced that after hearing our own side of the story, I see no reason why we will not be successful.
“The case was filled in 2023 and judgement delivered in 2024 , but as I speak, I saw them flash Certificate of Occupancy, C of O, obtained in 2025. Prior to that, we found out that what they obtained was federal C of O obtained from the Federal Ministry of Works in Ikoyi Lagos.
“That was obtained in 2021 but we had our own in 2011 and governor’s consent in 2013. I don’t think federal C of O is applicable to Ikeja GRA, but I will further dip into that. I wonder whether at this point in time, there is still anything like approval in Ikeja GRA at this time everywhere in the area is built up. The C of O cannot change any transaction that has illegality or invalidity under it.”
Okpoko said the company has consistently been meeting its obligations to the Lagos State government.
“We have been making our annual returns to the Lagos State government till date. We have evidence to that and we will annex it”, he stated.
