Banner Online News

By Owei Lakemfa

The Providus Bank wrote J.Wesley Investment Limited, the profit-making company wholly owned by the Trustees of the non-profit Methodist Church of Nigeria, MCN, a love letter. It was a final demand letter dated October 29, 2024 asking the Spiritual Lords of the Church to pay an earthly sum of N2,036,567,275.74 owed the bank. In stating that this amount is “excluding interest in progress”, the bank affirmed that: “The account has not witnessed any significant inflow and all efforts at turning around the account have not been successful.”

The letter explained that the indebtedness arose from multiple loan facilities the debtors took to “part finance the construction of a 32 units (sic) residential luxurious apartment being developed by Obligor at Sinari Daranijo Street, V/I Lagos.”

Ordinarily, there should be no issue in a creditor banging the gates of a debtor even if the latter is a religious organisation. It is also no news that such organisations engage in buying and selling. This has been the case since pre-Christian times. Matthew 21:12 recorded the case of Jesus going into the temple of God and chasing out all those buying and selling in it. He was so angry that He disrupted trade, including overturning the tables and chairs. Today, He would have been charged with disorderly conduct, causing bodily harm or even terrorism. But trading in the name of God is not the issue here for, as we used to say as kids in Lagos: “There is nothing new under the sun”. In fact, indebtedness is not an issue; even ‘big’ men like Donald Trump are indebted as are big countries like Nigeria.

What makes the MCN-Wesley-Providus imbroglio worthy of public attention are the threats by the bank “to commence foreclosure on mortgage property”. Now, the said property is on school lands not those of the debtor MCN!

The lands in question are those of the Methodist Boys High School, MBHS, at 11, Sinari Adaranijo Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. They were procured for the school and, in the name of the school by an Old Boy of MBHS, Chief Tunde Fanimokun. The then Governor of Lagos State, Alhaji Lateef Jakande on October 14, 1983 signed the certificate of occupancy, C-of-O, which specifies that the allocated land is for education purposes.

Unfortunately, 2.4 hectares of the new school lands were stolen, leaving MBHS with a balance 3.3 hectares. Lands on Victoria Island are perhaps the costliest in the country, and tragically, the Trustees of the MCN decided to help themselves to the school lands. They surreptitiously, procured a different C-of-O on February 6, 2012 for the same school land! But unfortunately for them, the original C-of-O given to the School 19 years earlier, subsists and they had no way of erasing it from the records.

It was when the MCN Trustees in 2012 invaded the school lands trying to build private flats for profit that the Old Boys led by a banker, Mr Toyin Amusan, awoke to what was afoot. They produced the original C-of-O and stopped the privatisation. The Church Trustees beat a tactical retreat and agreed to talks ostensibly to find an amicable solution. But the MCN Trustees made another cynical move. They signed a deed of assignment purporting to have sold 8,235.98 square metres of the priced school lands to John Wesley Investment for the sum of One Naira (N1).

The MCN Trustees who signed the deed on behalf of the church were the then Church Prelate, Dr Sunday Ola Makinde, who owned N3.5m of the total N10m shares of the same Wesley company and, Dame Helen .O. Adenusi who owned N500,000 of the company shares. Another prominent shareholder was former MCN Prelate, Dr Sunday Coffie Mbang. In other words, the revered MCN Trustees sold the school lands to themselves!

When the scandal broke, the Trustees sued for peace, and Makinde’s successor, His Eminence Samuel Chukwuemeka Kanu Uche, asked that the Old Boys pay off the N30 million the Church had allegedly expended on the illegal property construction as a condition to hands off the school lands. The Old Boys agreed. However in a November 18, 2021 letter signed by the Right Reverend Michael. O. Akinwale, the MCN claimed that the N30m demanded by Prelate Uche “was a mistake” and asked the Old Boys to pay the church N390m which the latter rejected.

The stalemate continued until August 31, 2023 when the Trustees, this time under Prelate Oliver Ali Abah, again invaded the school lands. Later, the MCN Trustees brought armed thugs to attack the Old Boys. Meanwhile, in the last dozen years, the loans taken by the Trustees have topped N2 billion and the Providus Bank is now demanding its money.

The MCN has also resorted to religious blackmail. For instance, Archbishop Adegbemi Atanda Adewale of the Ile Aderinoye, Otileta House of Owu has circulated a message claiming that Chief Fanimokun, “a Muslim”, is trying to “control” church property. A pathetic low for the MCN.

The pitiable situation of the MCN is like that of a dog that has swallowed a big bone and is unable either to swallow or spit it out.

If the Providus Bank did not carry out due diligence search before giving its money to the Trustees of the Methodist Church, that would be its fault, not that of the children in MBHS, Lagos. The bank cannot visit the sins of the adults in MCN on the school children of MBHS. The bank should take on the MCN for size and, if necessary, sell its headquarters, rather than take on the hapless children of MBHS and try to deprive them and future generations of their school lands.

If Providus Bank realises that it has been deceived into accepting a controversial C-of-O to provide loans to the MCN and its subsidiary Wesley business arm, what it should do is recover its money from both earthly entities who have identifiable directors. Providus must take notice that if it thinks it can visit the sins of the father MCN on the children in the school, it will be mistaken. The students, parents and the Old Boys of MBHS could not have fought the MCN over the years only for Providus to assume it can seize the same lands.

If need be, we are prepared to fight the bank for decades. The MBHS Old Boys are replenished annually by graduates from the school; so we will have generations which will replace our generation in the battlefield until predators hands-off the MBHS school lands. It would make more business sense for Providus to auction off MCN assets than sell the school lands. This serves as caveat emptor: purchase MBHS, Lagos school lands, you purchase litigation and trouble.