Multiple Tenants Swindled By House Owner Using Building Control Agency As Excuse

A house owner, Alkolib Ibrahim Ayinde-Laka, is being hunted by the Police in Lagos over an alleged scam by obtaining money from multiple tenants under the false pretence of providing accommodation for them.

P.M.EXPRESS reports that Alkolib Ayinde-Laka went into hiding after obtaining money from multiple tenants with the assurance of each getting an apartment in his house located at No. 26 Omo Oba Jesu Street, Akowonjo, Lagos.

It was gathered that the suspect, Alkolib Ayinde-Laka, while renovating the said property, had obtained money from people much more than the number of apartments available in the said property while issuing receipts bearing Al Kolib Homes.

A source, who spoke to our correspondent, said that the suspect had the intention of providing accommodation for the tenants until the building control agency in the state, LASBCA, sealed the property for not providing the relevant documents. At that point, he was said to have obtained more money from unsuspecting members of the public in order to pay the required fees in order to have the property opened, which reportedly led to his inability to meet up with earlier promises to would be tenants, who hoped to access their apartments by the first week of December, 2022.

Another source had a different version. The source, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said that the suspect, Alkolib Ayinde-Laka, was developing a private property somewhere else and only put the extra money he had collected into his private property using the notices pasted by the building control agency as an excuse to swindle the unsuspecting members of the public.

It was scooped that at the expiration of the date he had given the tenants to finally have access to the property, he continued to give assurances that he was working on procuring the relevant permits from the building control agency. With constant enquiries and phone calls, the suspect, Alkolib Ayinde-Laka, stopped picking up his calls and went into hiding.

P.M.EXPRESS correspondent gathered that the suspect, Alkolib Ayinde-Laka, who was said to be related to the Oba of Shasha Kingdom, may have run into financial problems, which prompted him to use the property as a bait to swindle unsuspecting members of the public.

Another source, a young man who lives within the area, alleged that the suspect, Alkolib Ayinde-Laka, had the intention to scam the unsuspecting tenants, who were mostly young Lagosians. He said that the suspect never allowed real estate agents to get involved by introducing their clients. He rather positioned and used his accomplices to coarse them to deal directly with him as the owner of the property.

As at the time of filing this report, his known phone number 08061744650

has remained switched off as he was said to have gone into hiding while the Police make efforts to apprehend him for interrogation and prosecution.