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The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has been named in an alleged directorship registration and forgery scandal involving a multi-billion Naira firm. Three suspects – Mrs. Eunice Odirri and Mr. Sunny Esiso, both children of the owner of the firm, the late Chief E.A. Esiso, and a lawyer, Mr. Wilfred Okoli – who were held and interrogated, last week, by the Special Fraud Unit (SFU) of the police in connection with the alleged scandal have been granted bail while the SFU operatives were believed to be after their alleged collaborators in CAC.
According to reports, Gateway Estates Limited has substantial real estate holdings across the country particularly in Warri, and was founded by the late Esiso, with him and his wife, Mrs. Iketiti Esiso, as co-directors. Esiso’s death in 2011, according to a petition by his first son, Y. Esiso, triggered SFU’s action, left Gateway Estates Limited with one director, culminating in its need to appoint at least one more director to the company’s board.
According to the petition to the Commissioner of Police, SFU, Milverton Road, Ikoyi, dated February 15, 2014, it stated that, “The CAC rejected their request on the grounds that an order from a state court does not suffice to command the compliance of CAC. CAC insisted that the duo must go to yet another court, this time the Federal High Court, to get an order for an extraordinary general meeting. The strident objection of Barrister Ama Etuwewe, acting for the court appointed administrators to the illegality of this peremptory command, did not sway CAC from her flagrant contempt of an order of court”.
“In January 2013, the Federal High Court, sitting in Abuja, granted the said order, subsequent upon which an extra ordinary general meeting was summoned by the administrators at which resolutions were passed and adopted and a list of new Board members nominated and forwarded to CAC. When pressed, they refused to give reasons for their second, more egregious contempt of court but a quick perusal of the files of CAC revealed that while CAC was sending the administrators on a wild goose chase for more court orders, they had proceeded with the acceptance of a list of directors from one Barrister Wilfred Okoli of C84, Banex Plaza, Wuse 11, acting for the duo of Mrs Eunice Oddiri and Mr. Sunny Esiso, siblings and the fifth and sixth children of the late Chief Esiso.
“Ostensibly, CAC accepted the list from this duo on the basis of a form purported to be signed by the sole surviving director, Mrs Iketiti Esiso, and one Mr. Anthony Chikwendu, who had acted as Company Secretary at the time of formation of GateWay Estates Ltd. in March 1973, 41 years ago. What the parties did not know is that the interim administrators had made spirited efforts to locate Mr. Anthony Chikwendu many years prior and had established the fact that he had been deceased for over a decade and had consequently proceeded to the court option for the summoning of an extraordinary general meeting”.
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