Publishing Your Client On Zinox Chairman, A Cheap Blackmail – TechEconomy Nigeria
I have been following with interest the case of what appears to be a blackmail attempt by your client, Mr Benjamin Joseph of Citadel Oracle Concepts Limited, an Ibadan based ICT retail company against the Chairman of Zinox , Mr. Leo Stan Ekeh, his wife, TD Africa and its staff and Access Bank Plc. for some time as a disinterested observer.
However, I recently became interested in the case after a lawyer friend of mine went to great lengths to verify the facts on the ground with the respective authorities. Now I am moved to comment following what I consider to be unacceptable media slander to disparage the character of the owner of Zinox.
The only sin committed by Mr. Ekeh’s company is to extend a documented interest-free credit facility to your client when he could not finance a computer supply business that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) assigned to his company and 12 other companies. After FIRS has paid all vendors funded by Technology Distributions Ltd. (TD Africa), other companies paid TD the invoice amount for the laptops provided to them on credit as agreed.
However, your client attempted to misappropriate funds from TD.
It is important to state here that your customer’s credit application was originally rejected due to a lack of credit history with TD. However, his partner, Princess Kama and her uncle, a chief Onny Igbokwe, a long-time TD customer, intervened on his behalf.
Therefore, when he attempted to withhold cash for laptops provided on credit by TD, his partner, Princess Kama, who handled the transaction on behalf of her company (he issued a letter of authorization to Princess Kama as the legal representative of her company and submitted it with a copy of her passport to the FIRS) refused as the credit was guaranteed by Chief Igbokwe.
After the TD payment, your client Benjamin Joseph began a fight with his partner, Princess Kama, over profit sharing which lasted two years and was at one point by a distinguished lawyer – Chief Afe Babalola – who begged Princess Kama to consider increasing the profit share. because of Benjamin Joseph a bit, but your client wanted it all.
This is when your client changed the story that he was unaware of the contract and that his company had been used to defraud the FIRS, adding that nothing had been provided to the FIRS. This, I understood, was for the purpose of trying to blackmail the owners of TD into extorting money from the company. He sponsored bogus press releases against the chairman of Zinox, his wife and Access Bank so he could gain access to Mr. Ekeh. When he traveled to Lagos from Ibadan to meet Mr Ekeh on one occasion, the chairman of Zinox refused to see him because he was listed as a blackmailer.
Your client had first reported the matter to the Special Police Fraud Unit (SFU) Milverton Road, Ikoyi. The SFU investigated and charged him based on a forensic analysis report indicating that he had signed the board resolution which he claimed was falsified. He then filed another petition with the Abuja Police Headquarters, who after investigating and confirming that he was lying, charged him in court in 2016 in case CR/216/2016 (IGP vs. Benjamin Joseph) for false information before the Honorable Judge Peter Kekemeke. . The Police (Parquet) have since closed his file since 2018 and your client is supposed to open his defense.
Instead of defending himself, he runs around with your help, to get the attorney general to end the criminal case against him. My investigation at the Ministry of Justice revealed that your chamber once seized the AG with a letter dated November 1, 2018, for a Fiat, which you invariably wanted to use to stop the criminal proceedings against Benjamin Joseph, so that he is not defending the criminal charges against him. But the AG refused only your request from 2018. Subsequently, your client went to obtain false “reports” allegedly made in 2015 and 2020, which you, again, used to request another Fiat .
But my further investigations at Force Headquarters in Abuja show that the police have, through a comprehensive report dated December 1, 2020, discredited and denied all such “reports” that your client parades and with which you tried to obtain the honorable AG to grant you a Fiat in May 2022.
However, when the AG reviewed the file further and saw the discrepancies in your Fiat application, the AG reversed and sent a new letter to the police dated June 6, 2022, directing the police to pursue your client, Benjamin Joseph, to a logical conclusion. For example, your Chambers did not disclose to the GA that there is a valid judgment of the FCT High Court in Case No. FCT/HC/CR/244/2018, rendered by the Honorable Mr Justice Danlami Senchi on February 24, 2021, against your client. pay 20 million naira as damages for false petition and act as a deterrent against people who would give the police or EFCC false information as your client did. This followed the petition your client made on the same set of facts and allegations to the EFCC through the Vice President.
Yet you are asking Fiat to sue the same people your client is being asked by a standing judgment to pay 20 million naira in damages! This same judgment absolved these same people of all the allegations made by your client.
I would also like to point out that the federal government, through the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and the Inspector General of Police, has instructed the court to prosecute your client, Mr. Benjamin Joseph to the logical conclusion , with letters dated June 6, 2022 and September 26, 2022 respectively, for misrepresentation to the FCT High Court, before the Honorable Justice Peter Kekemeke. Yet the latest statement issued by your client indicates that you are filing a complaint against Mr. Ekeh, Mrs. Ekeh, Chris Eze Ozims, Shade Oyebode and others named in the publications. In the meantime, your client was in court on September 27, 2022 and the AG’s letter of June 6, 2022 and the IGP’s letter of September 26, 2022, to pursue the lawsuit against your client were already on file. Your client has been called to testify in his defense. He could not defend himself but instead asked for an adjournment.
Yet your client quickly rushed to the press on the 29th (2 days later) to blackmail innocent people with reckless allegations contained in various online publications. All these acts are capable of giving the impression that they are not intended to meet the ends of justice but simply to embarrass and humiliate Mr. Ekeh, the president of Zinox, his wife and his staff.
It is defamatory to insinuate that a distinguished tech entrepreneur who built the largest ICT group on the continent, along with his wife and a few others have been charged by the police and the EFCC. Everything is false.
The statement said SFU Police and EFCC had charged Mr. Ekeh, Ms. Ekeh, Mr. Ozims, Ms. Oyebode, Mr. Adigwe. Could you please release these SFU and EFCC reports to the public for us to read? I inquired with the EFCC and Police Headquarters to confirm this claim and both confirmed that there was no such invitation or indictment. The fake
The police reports your client exhibits were not written by the SFU who investigated the case. Your client instead procured a certain “report” from an Abuja Police Department, which did not investigate the matter and which Abuja Police Headquarters denied in their FINAL report dated of December 1, 2020 on this matter. Yet your client exhibits these false and discredited reports. I am sure you are aware that your client who has reported cases has not been able to substantiate and defend the case he has reported in court to date and instead begs the Attorney General to withdraw the case. I have taken the trouble to give you precise dates of the letters and reports and details of all the cases, to demonstrate the veracity of my conclusions. Anyone can check them.
For your information, Technology Distributions (TD Africa) which is headed by Mrs. Chioma Ekeh, 1st Class Mathematician, FCA, MBA is the largest ICT product distribution company in Sub-Saharan Africa and has revolving credit to ICT vendors of $75. m over the past eight years. This is why your client could benefit from an interest-free credit to perform the work for which he could not obtain a bank loan.
Mr. Ekeh and his board of directors are people of integrity and do not hesitate to confirm this with industry players. Yet he sponsored a publication which states that 12 people including Access Bank conspired to defraud him of N170 million. Are they hungry to collectively tarnish their integrity with a mere 170 million naira contract?
Indeed, your client owes an apology to Mr. Ekeh, a serial digital entrepreneur and well-known proponent of the trust economy and digital democracy, whom I consider to be the primary target of this charade. Let me share a few facts.
Over the past 35 years, he has built the largest ICT cluster in Africa with businesses on four continents without borrowing kobo or owing any banks for that matter (please check with Nigerian banks). He believes he is a child of the trust economy and has succeeded.
His companies have executed the biggest ICT projects in Africa and some Arab countries and therefore are not desperate to deceive anyone. His companies also employ thousands of quality Nigerian employees. He can be extremely humble but not stupid.
Mr. Ekeh is privileged to be the only African with revenge insurance (please check the global database if you have access). He is humble to the point of fault and that is why he tolerates your client. He once told his friend after investigating your client with paid foreign sleuths that Mr. Joseph was broke and working as a little blackmailer for competitors of some of his companies and it was a waste of time to watch in his direction.
Finally, Mr Falana, I would like you to ask me if the assertions made by your client in this publication are founded.
Please publish the court, police and EFCC report that indicted Mr. Ekeh, his wife and all other names mentioned including Access Bank.
If you have this proof, I will publicly apologize to you for seeing your client’s post as cheap blackmail. I believe that regardless of how long it takes, justice will eventually find its way into this long-running case.
