UPDATE: FOREIGN BUSINESS DEAL GONE SOUR!
Nigeria’s former Minister, Kuforiji-Olubi Cries Inside British Holloway Prison…’She Must Spend 30 Days in Prison’, says Justice Burton
*Ordered to pay former Biz Partner, Tidewater 300,000 Pounds as Cost
*British Judge declares her son Olutokunbo Afolabi on the run wanted, sentenced to 4 Months Imprisonment
*Instructs: ‘From the day Olutokunbo Afolabi is arrested, he must be remanded at Her Majesty’s Prison Pentoville’
BY SAMSON SHOAGA/MANAGING EDITOR, Europe
FROM all indications, Bola Kuforiji-Olubi, a former Nigeria’s Minster of Commerce of Commerce is presently very sad. And she is alleged to be crying inside British Holloway Prison after been sentenced there to spend 30 days by a British judge, Justice Burton for contempt of the court. In spite of defensive arguments put up by her lawyers, the judge remains firm that Bola must go into the prison for disrespecting British judiciary system, after been ordered to cough-out the sum of 30,000 pounds to Tidewater, her erstwhile business partner who claimed his firm was ‘defrauded’, by a breach of contract from Phoenixtide Offshore Nigeria owned by this Nigerian politician.
Investigation by Naija Standard showed that Bola had been crying immediately she was taken into Holloway prison since she lease expected that that could happen, bearing in mind her high-political profile in Nigeria as a celebrity, but the British judge looked the other way and merely applied the judicial laws of United Kingdom as agreed by both parties on the matter.
It would be recalled that Bola, her son Olutokunbo Afolabi, who doubles as Managing Director of the company and their firm, Phoenixtide Offshore Nigeria, was ordered to pay the plaintiff, Tidewater Marine International, an accumulated sum of £300,000 as costs. Trouble started for the Olubis a decade ago when Tidewater Marine International began a business relationship with Phoenix Oceanlines to form a company called Phoenixtide Offshore Nigeria owned by the soft-spoken former minister and her family.
Under the terms of the non-exclusive agreement it was gathered Phoenixtide was expected to provide some local support services, while Tidewater provided the most costly elements including, technical services, the vessels and access to International Oil Companies. Key aspects of the agreement included a marketing commission payable to Phoenixtide on all transactions carried out by the collaboration, while all payments due from the services rendered were to be made to Tidewater, after which the commission due to Phoenixtide would be paid.
In addition, the parties also agreed that any disputes that might arise between them would be submitted to the high court in the UK for determination under English law, especially since both Bola and her son, Olutokunbo, are British citizens. Due to irreconcilable differences, both companies ended up parting ways in 2012, which led to litigation and it was in this process that Chief Kuforiji-Olubi was found guilty of disobeying court orders.
It is no longer news that this Nigeria’s former Minister has been sentenced has been sentenced to 30 days in United Kingdom prison, having been found guilty of contempt of court on February 18; what is news however, is the rate she the embattled ‘high-profile politician’ has been crying inside Holloway prison, allegedly fearing that her reputation and political career in the future may have been ruptured.
Don’t forget that Bola, a former bank chief executive who served as a minister during the tenure of Chief Ernest Shonekan and General Sani Abacha, was convicted of contempt on February 18 by Justice Michael Burton of the Commercial Division of the High Court of Justice Queens Branch Division. She was found guilty of disobeying the orders of the court and remanded in custody at Holloway.
For Olutokunbo Afolabi, presently hiding away from the long arms of British law, he was sentenced in to four months imprisonment, and ordered to be remanded at the Her Majesty’s Prison Pentoville from the day of arrest.