The counsel for the Founder, Living Faith Church a.k.a. Winners’ Chapel, Bishop David Oyedepo, Mr. Chioma Okwuanyi, has accused the stock brokerage firm, Valueline Securities and Investment Limited, which sued his client and others, of being on a gold-digging mission.
But Okwuanyi vowed that the law would catch up with the firm.
He said, “As far as I am concerned, Valueline are just on a gold-digging mission. They are just there looking for a scapegoat but the law must surely catch up with them.
“They defrauded investors by going to obtain margin loans purportedly on behalf of investors without telling the investors. How can that be done? We did the correct thing by going to the regulatory body to say look at what these people did.
“We were before the regulatory body for 21 months, nobody complained. After they had issued their report, Valueline, having seen that it was against them, rushed to the Federal High Court. Is that justice? So, as far as I am concerned, they are just gold-digging but the law must take its course.”
Valueline and its Managing Director, Samuel Enyinnaya, had instituted a legal action against the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Oyedepo and nine others alleging breach of contract and claiming about N1.86bn in damages jointly and severally against the defendants.
In their suit marked FHC/L/CS/1999/2014, the plaintiffs were challenging their trial before the NSE which had frozen their business accounts over the saga.
The plaintiffs asked the court to “declare that the NSE had been conducting the trial before it in a manner prejudicial to the their fundamental right to fair hearing.”
They prayed the court to reverse what they described as malicious freezing of their trading accounts by the NSE.
Besides, the plaintiffs urged the court to compel the NSE to pay them N61m for the closure of their accounts and to make an order compelling the first to 10th defendants to pay them N780m, being their unpaid professional fees for managing their investment portfolio.
In addition, the plaintiffs also want N1bn in damages jointly and severally against the defendants for the trauma and psychological torture and loss of reputation they suffered by the actions of the defendants as well as N25m solicitors fees and the cost of instituting the action.
But in their own objection, the 1st to 10th defendants, through their lawyer, Okwuanyi, argued that, “Contrary to the intendment and spirit of the agreement and in violent desecration of all known investment criteria and without the courtesy of informing the investors, the plaintiffs went berserk on a borrowing spree.
“This was compounded by the fact that the borrowing was not done on behalf of the 1st to the 10th defendants because all the margin loans were in the name of the plaintiffs and their cronies. None was in the name of the 1st to the 10th defendants.
“The 1st to the 10th defendants vehemently protested the borrowing and rejected same as borrowing was and still banned in the activities of the 1st to the 10th defendants.
“The losses occasioned to the investment of the 1st to the 10th defendants were as a result of the negligence and recklessness of the plaintiffs. It was an outright fraud.
“None of the reports submitted by the plaintiffs captured the margin borrowing because they were all in their names and not in the name or on behalf of the 1st to the 10th defendants.
“The 1st to the 10th defendants officially complained to the Nigeria Stock Exchange, who in accordance with its regulatory functions and duties, set up a panel to investigate the complaint.
“The panel painstakingly investigated the complaint for almost two years and came out with an interim report.”
Okwuanyi, however, told the court to throw out the case for want of jurisdiction, insisting that the Federal High Court could not by law entertain the matter, which was already before the NSE panel.
