The struggle for the control of the Board of Ikeja Hotels Plc has continued with Goodie Ibru, who was allegedly removed by a section of the shareholders insisting that he remains the Chairman of the company’s board.
Many of the company’s shareholders had at an Extra-Ordinary Meeting of the company, which was held under controversial circumstances on Tuesday voted in favour of removing Ibru as the chairman of the company and appointing KPMG to audit its accounts.
The shareholders who voted at the EGM hold more than 50 per cent stake in the company, according to Directors of the company present – including Rasheed Olaoluwa who is also the Managing Director of the Bank of Industry and acted as interim chairman at the meeting.
The meeting had been scheduled to take place at the Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, but policemen and soldiers prevented the shareholders and directors present from gaining access to the venue.
The security officials said their action was due to an order by an Abuja Federal High Court preventing the EGM from taking place.
The shareholders, however, held the meeting in front of the hotel, insisting that they were duly granted permission to hold the EGM by a Federal High Court in Lagos and that only a superior court could overturn the order of the Federal High Court in Lagos.
Goodie Ibru, however, told journalists at the Sheraton Hotel Ikeja on Friday that the EGM was null and void.
“In the first place, the so-called EGM was not properly convened; we have over 14,000 shareholders, none of who were issued with the notice required by sections 220-222 of CAMA (Companies and Allied Matters Act) 2004; nor were they afforded the opportunity to appoint proxies to vote in their stead.”
He explained that his late brothers’ estate had not been admitted to probate as that is subject to legal dispute, adding that, “Also in disbute is Maiden Ibru’s right to represent companies and trusts of which it consists.”
As a result, he said it was illegal for her to have been involved in the EGM, a development he explained further showed its illegality.
Although the Bank of Industry and Oba Otudeko, both major shareholders in the company were involved in the EGM, Ibru insisted that they had both been involved in every board decision.
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