By Vincent Kalu
The Caretaker Committee of the Balogun Business Association (BBA) has warned against unauthorised and illegal collection of tolls and utility charges from occupants and users of Balogun Business Association’s International Centre for Commerce at the Lagos International Trade Fair Complex, Ojo, Lagos State, by past executive members.
A press statement signed by the Caretaker Committee Chairman, Anselm Dunu and the Secretary, Leonard Ogbonnia, noted that the warning became necessary because some members of Balogun Business Association, who have been unlawfully parading themselves as members of a purported executive council of the Association, in brazen contravention of subsisting court orders, have illegally imposed or attempted to illegally impose various levies and charges on members of the Association, occupants and users of the complex, plaza, shops and key-clamps, as well as on various commercial activities within the area.
The statement emphasised that: “The incumbent management of the Association duly and lawfully constituted under the incumbent Caretaker Committee of the Association, has not imposed or authorised the imposition of levies or charges, by whatever name such may be described, on members of Balogun Business Association, or on occupants and users of the complex, or on plazas, shops and or key-clamps at the complex, or on various commercial activities within the complex.
“Amongst these illegal charges and levies are ‘utility charges’, ‘environmental charges,’ etc.
“Members of the Association and users and occupants should disregard these renegades and their illegal charges, which are more or less a criminal extortion scheme which these individuals are attempting to push through with threats of physical harm to persons and to properties of person who fail to cooperate with them.
“These renegade members of Balogun Business Association, have been unlawfully parading themselves as members of a purported Executive Council of the Association in contravention of subsisting orders, pronouncements and judgments of the Federal High Court in Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/451/2021;FHC/ABJ/CS/579/2021; FHC/ABJ/CS/215/2021 and of the Lagos State High Court in Suit No: LD/5458GCMW/2021.
“The Caretaker Committee is compelled to restate and repeat that these usurpers are relying on a judgment in a suit No: FHC/L/CS/1095/2021, in which neither the Association nor members of the Caretaker Committee of the Association and the majority of the trustees of the Association are parties.
“Any attempts by these reckless pretenders and outlaws to attack and demolish properties of the Association’s tenants within the complex or to fraudulently obtain judicial decisions in abuse of the processes of courts of law would be met with the full weight of the laws of the land.”