Risikat Adeniyi Adegeye, the wife of music legend, King Sunny Ade, is currently embroiled in a protracted legal battle over a N45.4 million debt, being the alleged outstanding amount due on a loan facility advanced to her by Sterling Bank in 2008.
She is in court to contest an order granted the Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) to take temporary possession of the property which was used as collateral to secure the loan. Through her lawyers, she is claiming that the ex parte application filed by AMCON and the subsequent court judgment were obtained without recourse to due process.
According to the court papers, she had sometime in 2008 secured a loan facility of N23 million from Sterling Bank which she augmented with her own funds to purchase a property valued at N33 million. The property located at Plot A2, House 3, Adonai Tekts Estate, Central Business District, Alausa Ikeja was duly bought and also served as guarantee for the loan.
In a sworn affidavit presented to the court by George Fola Adeniyi, one of Madam Risikat’s children, she averred that she had been dutifully servicing the loan since inception and had even asked her bank manager to furnish her with her loan statement of account to enable her ascertain and liquidate the balance of her loan repayment.
The plaintiff claimed that the bank never provided her with the statement, instead unilaterally passing off her debt to AMCON in 2011. She also claimed that AMCON has since then been imposing unilateral and extortionate interest on the loan balance without carrying her along.
Moreover, she contended, she was not served notice when the organization filed an exparte application to take over the mortgaged property. She therefore prayed the honourable court to set aside the February 22nd 2018 ruling which granted temporary possession of the house in contention.
In a related development, there are indications that both parties are in advanced negotiations an may soon reach an agreement that will enable them to settle the case out of court.