A Lagos property owner, Mr. Babajide Debayo Doherty, has petitioned the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, over what he described as a coordinated scheme of fraud, impersonation, and criminal trespass involving a lessee, Madam Funke Otti of CTSR Properties Limited, and an alleged impostor, Babatunji Wusu.
In the petition dated July 2025 and filed through his lawyers, Country Hill Attorneys and Solicitors, Doherty alleged that he and other beneficiaries of the Doherty family estate have been unlawfully dispossessed of their property at Plot 60, Chief T.A. Doherty Layout, Morison Crescent, Oregun, Ikeja, Lagos.
According to Doherty, the property was leased to CTSR Properties in 2014 via a Deed of Sublease granting a 50-year lease broken into five 10-year terms, with an agreed rent of ₦250,000 per acre annually. Covering a land area of 1.795 acres, the annual rent amounted to ₦445,750.
However, Doherty claimed CTSR defaulted almost immediately—paying only an initial ₦250,000 and failing to settle the remaining ₦198,750 for the first year. No further payments were made in subsequent years, allegedly resulting in a rent debt of ₦4.2 million.
Despite the breach, Otti was accused of unlawfully subletting the property to third parties—collecting ₦69 million from Wow Creamery Limited for a three-year lease and another ₦25 million from Svengali Designs Limited for one year. None of these funds, the petition stated, were remitted to the estate.
“This is outright fraudulent conversion,” Doherty said. “CTSR continues to occupy our land illegally while collecting money from unsuspecting tenants.”
To recover the property, Doherty and his siblings approached the Ikeja High Court. However, he alleged that Otti, while the case was pending, obtained a questionable consent judgment from a Magistrates’ Court in Ogba—introducing one Babatunji Wusu as the supposed owner and herself as his tenant.
“Who is Wusu? We don’t know him. Our father willed this property to us. Who sold to Wusu? This is why we are appealing to the IGP, EFCC, and all well-meaning Nigerians to intervene,” Doherty pleaded.
He also accused Otti of leveraging law enforcement agents and hired thugs to harass tenants, chase away workers, and attempt the demolition of warehouses on the premises.
Tenants on the property corroborated the claims, accusing Madam Otti of bullying and intimidation. They alleged she turned hostile when they declined her request to raise rent payments, after the Doherty family’s lawyer introduced them as the rightful owners and demanded she hands off the property.
One tenant recounted how, after informing Otti that her postdated rent cheques should not be deposited due to the legal dispute, she still presented them. “When the cheque bounced, she reported me to the EFCC. Luckily, I had our chats where I clearly stated she shouldn’t cash it, and that saved me,” the tenant said.
Meanwhile, three suspected thugs allegedly hired to forcibly take over the property have been arrested by officers at the Force Criminal Investigations Department (FCID), Alagbon, Lagos, while investigations continue.
