Our Terms & Conditions | Our Privacy Policy
The purported retirement and removal of directors and representatives of Ikeja Hotel Plc (IHPLC) from the Tourist Company of Nigeria Plc (TCN) board was not included in the Notice and Agenda for the cancelled Annual General Meeting (AGM), a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Anthony Idigbe, has said.
SEC had cancelled the AGM due to its ongoing regulatory intervention and subsisting interim court order mandating the maintenance of the status quo.
Despite the directive, some members of the TCN board went ahead with the AGM on Friday.
A statement by Idigbe on Sunday, issued through his Personal Assistant, Philomena Philips, said the removal of the chairman or directors was not on the agenda of an emergency board of directors meeting held on July 22, 2025, nor in the one used for the cancelled AGM.
It reads: “Our attention has been drawn to an unauthorised publication attributed to The Tourist Company of Nigeria Plc (TCN) alleging the removal of Chief Anthony Idigbe SAN as its Chairman at the Emergency Board of Directors meeting held on July 22, 2025 and his alleged retirement and removal as a director together with Abatcha Bulama the other SEC-appointed director and representative of Ikeja Hotel Plc (IHPLC) at a purported AGM of the company allegedly held on July 25, 2025 at Federal Palace Hotel Victoria Island despite the cancellation of the AGM by the regulators, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
Read also: Ikeja Hotel, Tourist Company of Nigeria AGM suspended indefinitely
“The agenda for the July 22, 2025, board meeting was as follows: (1) Opening, (2) Apologies, (3) Reading and adoption of the agenda, (4) Disclosure of conflict of interest, (5) Business of the day – Consideration of the memo on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) forensic audit findings and directives, and their implementation thereof; and (6) Closure of meeting.
“The removal of the chairman was not on the agenda. The chairman closed the meeting when the meeting became rowdy. The items on the agenda were not discussed. The company is still under regulatory action by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Appropriate reports have been made to the SEC by the SEC-appointed directors under the February 17, 2017, settlement agreement between the disputing shareholders of Alex Ibru/OMA Investment and RFC on the one hand and Goodie Ibru/AVI on the other hand in Ikeja Hotel Plc (IHPL), a company listed on the NGX and investor and substantial creditors of TCN, among other companies.
“The purpose of the regulatory intervention in IHPLC and its investee companies was to prevent the business from collapsing, restore corporate governance, and resolve the deadlock.
“Chief Idigbe is proud of the work he, the board, and management have done over the years, leading to the share price moving from 70 kobo in 2017 to N 23 last week, creating over 3,000 per cent in value for the shareholders. The cash reserves of IHPLC over the period have grown from negative to over N20 billion.
“The current contrived crisis from the agenda reproduced above is driven by the release on June 27, 2025, of the SEC’s findings and directives on the forensic audit conducted on the group by Deloitte.
“Shareholders, that is, Alex Ibru/OMA Investment/RFC group, who were dissatisfied with the SEC’s findings and directives, have taken their grievances to court. The attempt to make Chief Idigbe the issue is an afterthought and a disingenuous scheme to buy time.
“From the first day in 2017, when Chief Idigbe presided over the first meeting of the board of IHPLC and discovered that the agenda he approved for the meeting was altered without his knowledge, he applied and obtained the SEC and IHPLC board approval to have PUNUKA Nominees Ltd, now OOT Nominees Limited, as the Company Secretary. It has been so for eight years without complaint. The Nominations Committee of the TCN board reviews the performance of OOT Nominees Ltd.
periodically and has consistently approved their performance over the years.”
The statement said the AGM of July 25, 2025 was based on a Notice and Agenda that had a signature different from that of OOT Nominees Ltd, and was also backdated to July 1, 2025.
It added that items on the Agenda were inserted and different from the original Notice and Agenda dated July 1, 2025 and published by OOT Nominees Limited in various newspapers.
The statement continues: “The purported retirement and removal of the SEC-appointed directors and representatives of IHPLC from the TCN board was not included in the Notice and Agenda for the cancelled AGM, as published in the newspapers, scheduled for July 25, 2025.”
Read also: Ikeja Hotel: Here’re SEC forensic audit findings, directives
Idigbe noted that although the aggrieved shareholders have gone to court and obtained orders against the SEC, “they do not seem to have faith in the rule of law and instead seek to resort to self-help, utilising their perceived media influence to obtain unlawful remedies through unauthorised publication”.
“Despite the above distraction, Chief Idigbe has vowed to remain focused on concluding the national duty and service of resolving the IHPLC problem, which is nearing completion,” the statement adds.
Chief Idigbe has over 40 years of experience in corporate governance, insolvency, business restructuring, arbitration, dispute resolution, privatisation, capital markets, mergers & acquisitions, and oil and gas. He has advised clients on several complex transactions.
Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.
Aggregated From –
Comments are closed.