Traders at the new Balogun Ultra Modern Market which has been an object of litigation has appealed to the Balogun Family for more time to renegotiate their tenancy.

The traders were recently sent packing from their shops following the execution of a court judgment which purportedly declared the Balogun Family as the rightful owners of the mall.

All shops at the mall havesince been locked up by the Balogun family and traders at the mall have been asked to renegotiate their rent.


oBalogun Mall

Some former shop owners at the mall have however appealed to the family to allow them back into the mall to continue with their business while the re-negotiation continues.

Some of the traders who spoke to P.M.NEWS BusinessWeek lamented about the manner they were kicked out of the mall but pleaded with the Balogun Family for more time for re-negotiation since some of them had just paid their rent to the old owners of the mall.

Mrs Ngozi Ebele, a  major shop owner at the mall said that she had  just paid over N2 million as rent to the former owners but they were chased out of the mall, and that as it is, she has no money to pay until another rent until she sells some goods.

Another trader at the mall, Mr Ndubisi Nwachukwu, said that they are ready to pay the  new rent to the family but wants time to gather themselves and pay the money.

“We are going to pay but it will be difficult for us to gather the money if we don’t make sales to cover up for the loss of over a week,” he said.

Speaking on the matter, the Balogun Family lawyer, Barrister Segun Oladitan, said the family did what they had to do as they had waited enough for the traders to do the right thing but unfortunately they didnt.

Explaining why the traders were sent out of the mall, he said: “We got jugdement against the former owners, which is Lagos State and other stakeholders. Lagos State government who was in possession of the mall before now asked the family to wait for some time and for almost a year now nothing has been done.  The family waited for something concrete, and when we didn’t hear from them, we decided to take action and drove out the occupants”.

He added that the family is not having any issue or case with the traders. “All they need do is to comply with the rules and tenancy agreement. We are not going to dislodge them until we  know whether or not they want to remain in the mall. Following the judgement of the court, we waited for a long while, and being humane, we decided to take it up after Easter since they were not complying. We didn’t tell them to pack out. We only asked them to take whatever is important.”

Explaining further, Mr. Oladitan said:  “We only asked them to renew their rents. Initially we asked for two years but we later  asked them to pay a year in compliance with the  law of tenancy in Lagos. We are the new owners and we must have a contract with them and the rent is the only thing to show that they are recognised. We are not ready to shift the date for rent payment  and shops will be locked till they pay.”

--Motunrayo Idris