The Caretaker Committee of Balogun Business Association (BBA) at the Lagos International Centre of Commerce (ICC),Trade Fair Complex, has raised the alarm over the invasion of the market.

The committee, however, advised its members, stakeholders, affiliates and esteemed customers to remain calm and law-abiding while the committee handle what it called the “toxic and obnoxious shenanigans of fifth columnists bent on destabilising the ICC and the association.

According to members of the committee, on Wednesday, November 23, 2023, an unseemly event occurred, when two powerful traders reportedly broke into the shopping complex with the aim of enforcing an alleged order or judgment of court.

Following the failed takeover attempt, the CTC Chairman and the Secretary, Anslem Dunu and Leonard Ogbonnia respectively, issued a public notice to members, affiliates and stakeholders of BBA, and the general public to the fact that the invasion of the shopping complex was fraudulently contrived as the perpetrators latched on stale and illegitimate lawsuits in which neither BBA nor its members were parties, either in its plain name or its corporate or registered association.

The public notice also stated that neither the incumbent caretaker committee nor any of its members were parties to the abusive and contemptuous lawsuits.

It added that the two men, ostensibly consumed and propelled by a combustible mix of inordinate ambition and desperation have done the unthinkable by brazenly misinforming and manipulating both the court and the Nigeria Police Force for execution of a purported judgment against BBA, the caretaker committee of the association and members of the caretaker committee, who are not parties to the contemptuous lawsuits.

According to the CTC, “to make matters worse, the two desperado and their confederates, who claim to have been elected as members of a phantom executive council at an hotel in Mile 2, Lagos, their illegitimate lawsuit was wangled by them and unleashed on the court after the Federal High Court had, specifically in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/579/2021 (Incorporated Trustees of Balogun Business Association & Others Versus Inspector General of Police & others) and Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/451/2021(Incorporated Trustees of Balogun Business Association & Others Versus Corporate Affairs Commission & Others) made orders, decisions and pronouncements which effectively invalidated and nullified the comedy of errors that masqueraded as “elections” at Villa Park Hotel.”

The CTC declared that the two suits and the orders, decisions and pronouncements made by the Federal High Court predated the now infamous and contemptuous lawsuit of the two men, and their confederates and the orders, decisions and pronouncements of the Federal High Court in the aforementioned two Suits No. FHC/ABJ/CS/579/2021 and No. FHC/ABJ/CS/451/2021 are still subsisting.

The CTC further stated that the two suits even came up before the Federal High Court on Monday, November 20, 2023 and have further been adjourned by the court to December 19, 2023.

The committee, therefore, advised members to ignore the antics of the men as the association and the incumbent CTC are backed and sustained not only by the subsisting orders, decisions and pronouncements in the two aforementioned Suits at the Federal High Court but by subsisting judgement by the Lagos State High Court in Suit No. LD/5458GCMW)2018.

The CTC, similarly, advised all its members, affiliates and stakeholders not to enter into any contractual relationship with the two men or their representatives as they do not represent BBA.