Tuesday, January 7, 2025 - The Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Landmark Beach Resort, Paul Onwuanibe said that the federal government has refused to compensate the company nearly nine months after the demolition of his over $200m beach resort in Oniru, Lagos State.
Onwuanibe in a new interview said the action is enough to scare foreign
direct investors from investing their money in Nigeria.
The demolition of structures at Landmark Beach Resort in Oniru, Victoria
Island, commenced on April 29, 2024 to give way for the 700 kilometer
Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.
The Minister of Works, David Umahi said the government disbursed the
total amount of N2.75bn as the first payment to property owners affected by the
demolition.
In a statement released in May 2024, Landmark Group sought compensation
for the demolition of the asset. However, Onwuanibe says up till date his
company has not received a dime.
The CEO said, “Not a penny. To date, we haven’t been compensated,”
adding “nobody has written to me and promised (to compensate).”
Onwunibe lamented the land was acquired from the government for $17m in
2006 and the firm took a loan facility worth $30m to develop the property.
He said, “We were issued a seven-day notice. I mean, to be fair, it took
another two or three months before it came. Till today, nobody picked up the
phone, called me or wrote to me personally and said here is the issue we have
or here is what is going to happen.
” That site we bought in 2006, 18 years ago and we paid $17m in 2006. We
borrowed $30m to develop that beach. The pain and the hurt is that we spent
$30m developing the infrastructure on that beach.
“But you know the biggest tragedy of this was the businesses that were
affected by the losses of revenue. We had a beach hotel and people were
sleeping in the hotel when the demolition started. We didn’t have time to take
the TV from the walls, the mattress from the bed, the pictures on the wall, the
plates from the kitchen and there were guests in the pool.
“There were over 160,000 members of the beach and someone has decided or
a set of people decided that a road infrastructure project is more important
than socio-economic activities along that 700 kilometer coastlines.
Unfortunately, I was in the first kilometer.”
Watch the video below…
We acquired the land at $17m in 2006 - Landmark Group says the government is yet to compensate them after demolition of over $200m worth beach resort in Oniru, Lagos State (VIDEO) pic.twitter.com/E6yFI8F6Mh
— DAILY POST 🇳🇬 (@dailypost_ng) January 7, 2025
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