The Group Managing Director of CFL Group,  Lai Omotola has raised an alarm that the Attorney General of Lagos State, Moyosore Onigbanjo has forged a police document to institute a false criminal charge against him.

Speaking while addressing a group of reporters at the headquarters of his company in Maryland, Lagos on Monday, the real estate mogul alleged that the Attorney General has been making desperate and frantic efforts, in cohort with some corrupt elements in the judiciary to put him in custody for selfish interests.

Omotola said that one of the reasons why he staged the press conference was to draw the attention of His Excellency, Governor Babatunde Sanwoolu of Lagos, noting that he has written  a letter to him on same issue.

According to him, on the  the 8th of June, 2022 a controversial bench warrant was issued against him from the court of Honourable Justice Olatunde Oshodi.

He added that following the development, on  the 10th of June, 2022, his lawyers filed a motion for stay of execution in front of the same judge which still subsists.

Giving the details on how the whole incident started two years ago, Omotola said: "On the 20th of January, 2020 I received a call from one of our security men from our property at 63 Iju road, Agege that officials of Lagos State were at our premises demolishing our property. All efforts to stop them came to no avail.

"The next day, my attention was drawn to a punch newspaper report where the coordinator of Lagos State taskforce on Land grabbing, Mr, Owolabi Arole demiolished the property and have since returned the land to the rightful owner in the person of Mrs. Olatokunbo Williams and that me Lai Omotola is a land grabber.

"Upon the receipt of this report, I spoke to the Attorney General of Lagos State drawing his attention to the report and also informing him how our property has been demolished and that the coordinator of Taskforce on Land grabbing Mr. Arole Owolabi informed me that it was with his consent that the building was demolished and I would like him to call us together in order to resolve the issue. He responded by saying that if he was to call him he (Arole) was going to deny all I have said and that what I have to do is to do a petition against him.

"I did the petition against Mr Arole and
same was delivered to him. Upon receipt of the
petition by the A.G, I was called that a panel has
been set up headed by the Solicitor General Mrs.Titilayo Shitta Bey.

"At the meeting, Mrs Shitta bey
said since two persons were laying ownership on the land and they have purchased from different vendor, then its an issue of Land dispute instead of Land grabbing and that parties should go and seek redress in court since the matter is before the court. She handed over the file to Mr. Adebayo
Haroun for further investigation.

Omotola lamented that after bringing witnesses as required by Mr. Adebayo Haroun, the investigation was completed, adding that  all efforts to get report of the investigation did not yield any result.

He added: "We continued to send letter to get update on the report to the AG. It on record we have written the AG seven times without a response.For 18 months there was no response until 22nd of March, 2022 when I received a notice of arraignment from the office of the DPP at 1.10pm on the same day the arraignment was taking place.

"I instructed my lawyer to go to the court, but on getting there, he discovered that a bench warrant has been issued by Justice Olatunde Oshodi at 11am even before the notice of arraignment was brought to the office. On same day we requested for the processes filed in the court only to discover that the office of the attorney General has colluded with one CSP Akinjide Alabi of Zone 2 police to forged my statement in order to develop a charge against me.

"To prove my case, I subjected
the statement for forensic at Alagbon FCID and the result came out to be forged. My lawyer on the forensic report wrote to the AG but the letter was ignored to buttress our claim of conspiracy.

" I also petitioned the CSP that was used to
perpetrate the forgery to the Inspector General of Police. The IGP ordered a thorough investigation and was discovered the the CSP obtained an unapproved petitioned from a suspect in my own petition by the name Mr. Niyi Odunsi, upon which all other documents were forged. Upon this realization, the office of the IGP wrote a letter to the A.G informing him that all documents were forged and that no police formation carried out any investigation on what generated a charge.

"Still yet the AG continued e to ignore the letter.
On the 8th of June, 2022, my lawyer through an
affidavit brought the attention of the honourable court to the letter of IGP to the AG and instead oft the Judge looking at the substance to the letter hefled up,"  Omotola stated.

He noted that at this  this junction, he wants Honourable Jusatice Oshodi to recuse himself from this matter because he has become an interested party in the matter and therefore, to get Justice in that kind of situation is not possible.

According to him: "How can a Judge issue a bench warrant on the first hearing of a matter, when the suspect has not been served nor is there any evidence of his arrest by police to show that he is on administrative bail.

"Ordinarily, it’s the police that serves suspect with the charge personally, but  because it was known to both the Attorney-General and Justice Olatunde Oshodi that the police was not involved in the persecution, the only way to commence the proceedings is to first issue a bench warrant and then service a
notice of arraignmentt at my office which will
compel me to come. I ask all the judges in
Nigeria that is this the procedure?

He alleged that the plan of both the judge a d the Attorney General is to arraign him, put him in custody and impose strict bail conditions on him so that they would be able to achieve their aim.

"The intention of the judge and the Attorney General us to arraigned me so the judge can slam a strigent bail conditions that I will not be able to meet for 3 months and also sizing my passport and while am in custody move into my property and hand over to Mrs olatokunbo Williamns to hurriedly build on the land. and while in custody I can sign a letter of withdrawal of my petition. Mrs Olatokunbo Williams," he raised alarm.

"To the Attorney General, I would like him to
answer him the following questions:
Was he not the one that told me to write a
petition? .Can office of Land grabber adjudicate on a matter already before the court?
Can you ascribe ownership of land to a
particular person when same is before the
court? .

"Can the AG successfully prosecute a criminal matter when ownership is yet to be decided?.Does Governor’s consent cure any defect in title?Did you not receive letter from the IG office, informing you that there was never any investigation and the police documents with you never came from them?

."Can you prosecute without police investigation? .How can I be a petitioner in front of you and at the same time be charged for the same reason?.Have I not written to you 7 letters on the same matter without a single response from you.

Justifying his claim, Omotola said that the major reason why they are subjecting him to all these harrowing  experienced is because he has demanded for a compensation of N76million for the  demolition of my property

He added: "In order not to get this there is a grand plan to discredit me,embarrass me and put me in custody. I will not be intimidate because am a stakeholder in  this state, am a tax payer and via my company. We  have paid over N200million in government fees in 12 months and this can be verified from the account of Masters reality intl concepts ltd. I

"I deserve respect and not intimidation. I hereby call on the governor’s intervention.

He further stated that out of desperation, the AG brought a charge to magistrate court that his company has not been paying tax. Omotola however described the claim as ridiculous and absurd, saying that  his tax papers from Lagos Internal Revenue Services, LIRS show that he has never defaulted in the payment of tax.

Na wah o, the way these people use power to torment

It still has to be proven in court beyond reasonable doubt that he evaded taxes.
Company bank accounts will tell us what we need to know