Atoyebi Bamidele, a Lagos-based businessman, has failed to return N108 million belonging to Benedict Adewole and Sunday Williams (not real names), two Lagos-based real estate businessmen.

The businessmen told FIJ that they had entered into a contract with Bamidele in February 2023 and agreed to loan him N56 million.

Their agreement was for Bamidele to pay N4 million every week for three months and then repay the initial borrowed sum.

Going by this, both businessmen were to receive their money back in May, but three months turned to eight months, and Bamidele has been evasive, the men tell FIJ.

According to contract terms made available to FIJ, Bamidele’s final payment was to be made on May 11, 2023.

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The contract read, “The borrower shall make the full and final payment of the total loan amount as well as the interest totalling N108,000,000.00 (one hundred and eight million naira only) to the lender on/before the 11th day of May 2023, paying N4,000,000 (four million naira only) on a weekly basis with principal returned on the last week, 11th of May, with the last return on investment.

“The payment dates shall be 16th, 23rd of February 2023, and 2nd, 6th, 16th, 23rd and 30th of March 2023, and 6th, 13th, 20th, 27th of April and 4th and 11th of May for last return and capital return.”

“He only paid the first two instalments and then began to give us excuses,” the businessmen told FIJ. “We knew him from the 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.”

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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 to repay the borrowed sum. This grace period expired in September.

Prior to the expiry of this grace period, FIJ reported in August about how Bamidele had failed to pay what he owed, and several efforts were made to pull the story down.

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 our email.