The move to hand the National Theatre over to the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has been disrupted by Topwide Consortium, a concessionaire, NAN reports.
The firm, through its project director Chris Ogan stated that the handover would be stalled until the court’s final ruling on the matter.
On Feb. 10, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) had signed off on the renovation of one of Nigeria’s historical creative centres, the National Theatre for N21 billion.
The renovation, as projected, was to spur the creation of jobs for thousands of Nigerians who would participate in the revamping efforts.
In the lawsuit filed by Topwide Consortium, the firm stated that “We are using this opportunity to reiterate our answer that the suit is very much pending and for which we have retained two commercial law Senior Advocates of Nigeria.
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“Other defendants are Herbert Wigwe representing the Bankers Committee, the Board of the National Theatre, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) and Attorney-General of the Federation.
“The case was to come up on Dec. 15, 2020, but the Federal High Court, Lagos, which is hearing the case did not sit and it later adjourned the case to March 18, 2021.
“We were also contracted to develop a high rise car park and provide appropriate connections to the Lagos light rail Metro Blue Line station planned for the National Theatre Complex.
“The agreement is that upon completion of the rehabilitation, the upgraded National Theatre would be handed over to the Federal Government for the continued management by the Board of the Complex.
“Our lawyers, on our instructions, wrote letters-dated Oct. 24, 2019, to all the concerned Federal Government agencies/agents to desist from tampering with our concession contract.
“None of the officers/agencies ever replied the letters and shunned our entreaties for meetings to clear whatever misunderstanding that informed their actions.”
