Benedict Adewole and Sunday Williams (not real names), two Lagos-based real estate businessmen, have accused Atoyebi Bamidele, a friend of theirs, of breaching repayment terms of a N56 million loan he took from them in February.

Adewole and Williams told FIJ that Bamidele approached them in February to borrow the sum. Bamidele pledged to pay N4 million every week for three months and then repay the initial borrowed sum.

They lent Bamidele the money on February 9 and he was supposed to have repaid a total of N108 million by May 11, 2023. This, however, did not happen.

READ ALSO: A Call to World Leaders: Ending Violence Against Women and Girls Requires Advancing Men’s Access to Mental Health Support

“He only paid the first two instalments, and then began to give us excuses,” the businessmen told FIJ. “We knew him from university, and we had done business with him in the past, so we trusted him. When he failed to pay in the third week, we asked him and he said he lost some money.

“Every time we reach out to him, he would say he lost money, and ask that we give him more time. There was even an ajo (a thrift contribution) we did together but, after he collected his bulk sum, he stopped contributing and disappeared. We had to pay his contributions because I brought him in. When it got to his turn again, we collected our money back.”

On June 1, one month after the loan repayment deadline, Mistura Abolarinwa and Shehu Popoola-Taiwo, legal counsels for Bamidele, wrote to the businessmen seeking a two to three months grace period to repay the borrowed sum.

READ ALSO: Nigeria to Borrow Equipment for National Census

Adewole and Williams told FIJ they rejected this proposal. They had been trying to reach Bamidele via his known phone numbers and his Twitter account but it proved abortive as he would not respond.

On July 29, Bamidele posted on X that he had just cleared a N500 million debt but the businessmen believed his tweet was a ploy to deceive his creditors and lure unsuspecting members of the public to do business with him.

God just cleared me and my company off #500,000,000.00 debts that has caused us so much pains, shame, reproach, mockery and embarrassment for the past 1year

Please help me say thank you Jesus

— JESUS LOVES YOU (@AtoyebiPaulB) July 29, 2023

FIJ called Bamidele’s phone numbers but he did not take our calls. He also did not respond to our text messages. We contacted him via his Twitter handle but he did not respond, and he also ignored an email we sent.