A mild drama played on Tuesday at the front of
the Global Plus Printing Press, one of the subsidiary companies owned by Christ
Embassy Church, located at Oregun, Ikeja, Lagos State, after a publisher
attempted to demand N160 million compensation from the printing company.
The publisher, Mr. Boniface Ihiasota, was addressing
a crop of journalists around environment of Christ Embassy printing company, when
policemen appeared from nowhere and invited him to their station.
Earlier, Ihiasota, who is a client of Global Plus,
attempted to address journalists close to the company, but security details
kicked against it.
Ihiasota initially demanded for compensation for
breach of contract, which he placed at N12.5million, but after the matter was
taken to the Alausa Police Station, Ihiasota came out fuming. He hiked his
compensation demand to N160m.
According to Ihiasota, who is the publisher and
Chief Executive Officer of Excel Magazine International, circulating in 65
countries, the Christ Embassy Printing Company didn’t meet up with production deadline,
thus leading to him incurring financial losses.
He alleged that the company, for seven times,
couldn’t meet deadline and produced a poor quality magazine. He explained that
the company initially promised to reprint, but later reneged on the agreement.
Ihiasota, who is spitting fire, said that the
company has now refused to reprint his magazines and also refused to refund him
his money.
He said he had already presented the matter to the
Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Fatai Owoseni.
When policemen invited both parties to Alausa Police
Station, it was hoped that the matter would be amicably resolved, but mediation
failed.
Ihiasota said: “They messed up my printing. The
picture qualities are bad. They didn’t attempt to treat any of the pictures.
They also failed to meet deadline, seven times. I booked and changed flights
seven times because of the delay caused by the company. Flight money is never
refunded. My wife was supposed to take the magazines to Addisa-Abba, but she
couldn’t. She had to book flight down to Nigeria, to know what was causing the
delay. All these cost us money. The General Manager promised to reprint the
magazines and take care of logistics, but now, the company has reneged. The
company didn’t meet deadline and that in effect, affected my business.”
Ihiasota, who said he had done business with the
company before, which was why he came again, said he spent N5.6 in production
and printing cost.
He further said that after taking into cognizance
all losses incurred because of the inability of the company to meet deadline,
he was now demanding N160m as compensation.
The printing company however said that in its bid to
ensure a peaceful resolution of the problem, it presented seven options to
Ihiasota, but he allegedly turned all down. One of the offers was that the company
would print his next edition free of charge.
Yesterday, the company said it was no longer ready
to offer any further settlement, demanding that Ihiasota should go and get his
lawyer.
One of the workers said: “On Monday, he tried
everything possible to make security people in the company to manhandle him,
but I prevailed on them. He scattered our bookshop, broke some items and even
attempted to stab one of our workers with a sharp object. We had to wrest the
object from him. We have everything on tape.
“He said there was error in the printing, but he was
the person that caused it. He brought bad pictures and we told him they were
bad. We told him that if he wanted us to use the pictures that way, he would
have to sign a letter to that affect. He signed. We have the letter and text
messages. We only offered him amicable settlements because he’s a client and we
wanted peace, but he didn’t want peace.”
The company has now further dared Ihiasota to
present evidences of his international flight bookings, which he said he
cancelled on seven occasions.
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