How Nigeria Football League Limited  (NFLL), Owners of Nigeria’s Premier League, Compromised N1.2bn Court Judgement Debt

By KELVIN OLAMIDE

The Directors and Executives of NFLL will need to explain to Nigeria public the rationale that led them as Nigeria Professional Football League  supremos to compromise a whopping N1.2 billion judgement sum  started by the board of Chief Oyuiki Obaseki in Suit Nos LD/451/2010

Several years after a High Court in Lagos under Justice A Olateru-Olagbegi awarded the Nigeria Football League Limited a judgement sum of N1.2bn after one of its partners/sponsors reneged in the payment of the 2009/2010 sponsorship deal, there has been a grave yard silence by football authorities about this stupendous misappropriation by NFLL which would have provided opportunities for the development of the football league in Nigeria.

Are those who today celebrate bringing in N1b partners fund for three years or so not aware  that at today’s Naira value, the 1.2b awarded the league about 10 years ago would  be no less than N4b approximately?

Nigerians want to know the NFLL Board members and club owners who conspired to compromise the court awarded judgement award, so that they can be brought to book.

This amazing compromise also brought about additional huge debts which today’s ILMC must pay. This arose because the compromise led the NFLL Lawyer to sue the successor to NFLL, which is the LMC Ltd for his legal fees. The refusal of LMC Ltd to honour the debt on the grounds that it’s not a successor to NFLL Ltd became a court dragged issue that went all the way to Supreme Court. The Supreme Court in its judgement said the following:

1:That the LMC is not superior to NFLL and described  the LMC as a fraudulent company

2: That contrary to LMC assertion before the court that NFLL is dead, NFLL is alive and LMC must render accounts of its fraudulent operation to NFLL

3 That the league must pay the lawyer that won the Lagos High Court case that secured   the compromised N1.2b for the league  N244 million.

This Supreme Court judgement was delivered only in the second half of last year. 2022.  So ILMC, today’s successor of LMC inherits the Supreme Court’s awarded judgement sum of N244m. Add the N244 million to the mysterious compromise of the N1.2b and the total is mind boggling.

There is still more very worrisome fallouts from the League. Without the then Premier League board which compromised this award of the judgement sum to take into consideration the payment of the bank loan debt  it owes a bank , which is alleged to be about N500m incurred to purchase its Karaye NFLL owned headquarters, and save the building, it went on its self interest voyage , never paid a dime and lost this building. Add the loss of the Karaye building, which given the years of this sordid exercise, may be worth about N900m today to N1.2b and N244m awarded the lawyer for legal fees, the league must have lost about N4 to N5 billion.

“The mystery behind this unpatriotic disposition is that some of the stakeholders involved in this somewhat criminal act are alleged to still be roaming the adjacent streets of current NFLL rented office where it is alleged to be owing landlord unpaid annual rents.,” says a former staff of the NFLL who doesn’t want his name in print.