Don’t enter into partnership without conducting background check on your partner, proper agreement and documentation by legal team – Kent

The Chief Executive Officer/ Chairman TRAVOLTA Engineering Services Limited and Castle Mart Hubs Limited, Dr Mohammed Abubakar Kent has advised upcoming entrepreneurs to conduct background check on his prospective partners before asking lawyers to draft legal agreements that define the role of each parties in the business.

What are the challenges you’ve face so far during the course of your real estate business?

I have faced several challenges but the most shocking one is the one with my business partner, Sulaiman Aliyu . The Little Acorn Turnkey Project Ltd was where the issues came from. We were so close and I think greed and selfishness caused the problem. 

When we started Little Acorn Turnkey Project, and we saw the FCDA advert and we applied, luckily we got approval and in the course of doing the business, we had encounter with Sahara Homes because we were having challenges.  That was how we were introduced to Jubilee Life Savings and Loans Ltd– a PMI – workings with Federal Mortgage Bank to assist civil servants build their own houses. That was how Jubilee Life and Little Acorn became business partners and friends. One day, Jubilee Life invited us for a meeting telling us how allottees in Daki Biu were finding it difficult to build. They requested for our partnership to assist them build the estate. We agreed with the condition that we were going to use Little Acorn 1, since we already had subscribers in Lokogoma and we were already known in the business. That was how we designed that estate and hit the market.

When we started marketing the projects, we got a lot of subscribers based on our antecedent. In fact, it was a very bitter experience for me. Back to what I was saying, we got a lot of subscribers with our account ‘booming’. We were not selling land, we wanted to build and sell because people had confidence in us and they started paying 30 per cent of their contributions. 

As we were about to commence work at the Little Acorn II in Daki Biu, the villagers started protesting saying nobody would be allowed to build on the land. We had to go back to FCDA through Precious Otsu, the branch Manager of Jubilee Homes. Before we could meet the FCDA officials, news had circulated that Little Acorn did not have a valid land allocation and that we just wanted to scam people and collect their money. So, the subscribers started clamouring for the refund of the money they paid.

I called the Jubilee Homes’ Manager and told her that instead of tarnishing the reputation we built over the years, we should refund subscribers’ money. With the approval of the Management of the Jubilee Life Savings the subscribers were paid except a few of them.

As I’m talking to you now, there are some of my close friends who were yet to be refunded. So as we started the refunding back, the panic was everywhere, people were coming, they were given their money.

Kent said this while fielding questions from journalist in an interview on what would be his advice to any prospective entrepreneur that wants to go into partnership?

According to him, “I wish to advise the young ones that are planning to go into partnership; don’t do partnership without proper documentation, proper agreement prepared and vetted by a legal team”. Define a role, don’t ignore it because of age or close relationship with the person. 

Recounting his ordeals in the hands of his partner Sulaiman Aliyu, when they formed a real Estate company called Little Acorn Turnkey Project Ltd.

This Little Acorn I am talking about was an existing company but the new project was my brainchild, it was spearheaded by me. The idea came from me one hundred per cent. My partner, Sulaiman Aliyu advised we should change the directors of the company, that was how we approached the Corporate Affairs Commission CAC) to remove all the former directors. We restructured the company to appoint me and his brother as directors/shareholders in the company. I subscribed to 33.3 per cent of the shares, Aliyu 33.3 cent and Sulaiman younger brother Abubakar Aliyu 33 per cent respectively. That was where I killed myself. 

Sulaiman Aliyu and his brother were the controlling shareholders of the company. I did not take it seriously. What I am telling you now took place during one of our usual hangouts. My advice to anyone coming up is that don’t do business with anyone on the basis of friendship or brotherhood. He was my friend, that was why I was so relaxed, if not God and my sincerity to them, and I wasn’t dubious, I don’t know what could have happened to me. 

But thank God, I am still a director in the firm. As I talk to you now, I am still calling him to let us do proper handing over, let us do proper documentation and he has refused to show up, I don’t know where he is. He just wrote to the Estate’s Association that they should take over his stake and that of his younger brother in the company. So disgusting and awkward!

My advice is that whatever the young entrepreneurs are doing, business wise, they should take it very seriously and they should do a background check because it was later I discovered that all the people he had done business with had always ended badly, no one ended well because of greed.  

When we started refunding people’s money in Little Acorn II, my partner queried why we were giving them back their money. I said, we had to refund subscribers’ money because they can’t wait because of what was happening to the project. I explained to my partner that when the issue is rectified, we will sell more. I didn’t know that my partner had ungodly motives.

One day, my own partner sent a petition to the Police headquarters that I embezzled N800 million. He sent the same petition to EFCC, that I embezzled N800 million. I told him that we should meet at Jubilee Homes to discuss the issue at hand but he did not show up. I went alone and on getting there, I was told at Jubilee Homes that there was a petition against me. The first question I asked was who wrote the petition and they said it came from Sulaiman Aliyu (my partner), that I stole N800 million. So, I was at home one day and I received a call from the Police in Garki 2 command. They said I should come because there was a petition against me. Because I knew my hands were clean, I was just laughing.

I went there and the Police said they will detain me because they have to investigate the matter. I said, okay. They asked me questions about the money. I explained to them that it was subscribers’ money. People wanted to buy something, and they paid money. Our own company did not have that kind of money, it was subscribers’ money and we had to refund them. The subscribers were there, I could call them and they would come to testify, if I had taken their money or whatever. I show the Police our company’s inflows and outflows.

That was s how I knew that there are still good Police officers in the Nigeria Police Force. One of the Assistant Commissioners of Police that was handling the case called me and my friend and asked him (Sulaiman) this: “How did you manage to get this N800 million?  I don’t know Kent from Adam; it is you that one Senator sent a note to me to assist. But from Kent’s explanation, if you are talking about reconciliation, you can go and reconcile but nobody stole anybody’s money here. The money you are talking about, your partner said they refunded subscribers their money.” My friend, Sulaiman was standing there and he couldn’t say anything. He was told that it was not a criminal case, this is a roundtable matter.

That was how the matter was dismissed by the Nigeria Police Force. We left the police station on a Thursday, and not too long after that, I received a call from my wife that the EFCC operatives were in my house. There was no invitation, no letter. I asked her to give them the phone and I told them I will come to their office the next day (Friday). 

On Friday, I went to the EFCC and I met one Mr Azare, who asked us to come back on Monday. Just like I wrote in my statement at the Police Station, I did the same at the EFCC but I didn’t know that something had gone ‘underground’. They said I should bail myself, so I called one of my friends who is a cousin of my business partner, Kashim Omolori, who is a staff of FCDA. I didn’t know that they had other plans. The Little Acorn 1, was not finished yet. We had not done up to 40 per cent. We reserved some plots that we were going to sell to make our profit. 

Each time we appeared at the EFCC, they would say go and settle, and I would always tell them that there was nothing to settle. The money they were talking about was subscribers’ money which we had refunded. Some people are yet to get their money due to the fact that Jubilee Life refused to refund the commission they took up front.

When everything they accused me of failed, the next thing they said was that there was forgery in the opening of the bank account. Trying to see how they will get something from me. I told them plainly that “shishi no go comot from my pocket”. 

As I speak with you, the Daki Bui land in question is still in dispute between the community and other people. One day, they told me they would charge the case to court. I didn’t know that my partner had two aims; to see how he can sell the remaining land in Little Acorn 1, and second was to tarnish my image. 

At that time I was planning to marry. Each time I told him about the wedding plans he would always tell me why I didn’t wait for him. I didn’t take those talks seriously because I saw him as my friend and brother. Before I knew what was happening, the guy went and opened another account with Sterling Bank. The EFCC team said none of us should go to the land till the issue is sorted out, unknown to me, they connived with my partner to sell the reserved plots. It was one of my customers that told me that he bought land at Little Acorn 1 and that he paid money into a Sterling bank account. 

I complained at EFCC and they told me that I did not have any right to ‘talk’, that they wanted me to sign out of that Estate. Sixty per cent of the subscribers, if not 80 per cent of people that subscribed to the Estate was through my marketing. The EFCC team said they investigated and saw; that I had eaten more than my partner. And that was how they allowed my partner, Sulaiman to start selling. 

Later they asked me to bring money so that I can clear the case but I insisted that I was not giving them anything. The land that belonged to both of us, you allowed one person to be selling it and had almost finished selling the plots. The next thing the EFCC did because of my refusal to settle them was to charge me to court on the ground that their investigation indicted me, They charged me with diversion of N800 million, forgery among others, just to tarnish my image.

 In the court, their N800 million was now reduced to N302 million. My lawyers asked how they arrived at N302 million from N800 million?

That petition was taken to Sahara Reporters to publish and they gave it to different media houses. The case had not even begun but the report was in Sahara Reporters.

In a counter move, my lawyers filed a civil suit against my partner and the EFCC at the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja requesting that they be granted an independent auditor to audit the account of Little Acorn. 

That was how my partner surreptitiously orchestrated an out of court settlement to let himself and the EFCC officials of the hook in the case pending before the Federal High Court out of sheer proof that they did not have enough evidence before the court to secure my conviction. I am sure that if they do proper auditing, they will be the ones to refund money to me. As I talk to you now, my partner has abandoned the estate. He has been in a state of incommunicado for years now. Since I was born, I have never been to a Police Station, not to talk of the EFCC or any other prosecutorial body as a party to any investigation. It was a big experience for me, a bitter one for that matter.

As of today, I am still using the same phone numbers since GSM came into use in Nigeria. It is the same line I used for the business we are talking about. We refunded people’s money. If police could do a proper investigation and they said it was a board room matter that we should go and solve it, how much more for the EFCC that is a special prosecutorial institution? This happened during the time of late Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde and one head of Operations, Mr. Mohammed Azare but when Mr. Ibrahim Magu took over the mantle of leadership, in his own wisdom, he told us the Commission does not interfere in those kinds of issues. It was outside the mandate of the EFCC. Normally, the legal department is supposed to advise the Commission on the case. In spite of all that happened, I am still doing the business today. We are doing genuine 100 per cent business.

When asked if he would settle with his partners, Aliyu Suleiman, Kent said how can you settle with someone you do not know his where about?