National theatre: Previous concession winners head to court, vow to fight ‘illegal’ handover

In October 2019, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) made public its plans to improve infrastructure in the creative industry; this included a renovation of the national theatre in Iganmu, Lagos, and turn the facility into a creative village.

Before this, the CBN and its bankers’ committee had launched a creative industry financing initiative to improve access to finance for creatives and encourage banks to lend more.

On October 5, 2019, it was reported that the president had approved that the CBN and its bankers’ committee renovate the edifice.

An official handover ceremony took place in Iganmu o n Sunday, July 12, to signify the kickstart of the renovation process.

However, it appears that the project might not be a smooth sail for the banking stakeholders as two companies have taken legal steps to fight the bankers’ committee.

The companies, Jadeas Trust and Topwide Appeas, won concession rights to the facility and its surrounding land in two different bidding rounds.

Both parties told TheCable that they secured an ex-parte motion, that the status quo be maintained until the case is heard in court.

In a July 18 hearing, the federal high court in Lagos summoned Abubakar Malami, the attorney general of the federation; and Godwin Emefiele, the CBN governor, to appear before it on July 24 to explain why there was a handover when the structure is a subject of a pending lawsuit.

The court order favoured Topwideapeas Limited.

“We are fighting back. People are assuming that we are part of it because they see the private sector is involved, it has nothing to do with us,” Yetunde Aina, Jadeas Trust managing director, told TheCable.

“Since when did banker’s committee and CBN represent the private sector? Whose money do they want to spend? This is illegal and cannot stand.

“Topwide Apeas, the other preferred bidder with whom we have an MoU, have secured an injunction from the federal high court, Lagos against the bankers’ committee and CBN against any interference with the national theatre and surrounding landmass.

“The honourable minister (minister of information and culture) knows of our transaction. He was in one of the meetings where he asked us and Topwide to go and work out how we can work on this project.

“At this point, it is the course of public opinion that is going to justify what is going on.”

‘THE PROJECT WOULD HAVE COME AT NO COST TO FG’

Aina told TheCable that the consortium has engaged different funding partners, including the World Bank, for collaboration.

This, she said, would have ensured that the federal government did not incur any cost on the project.

“They are saying that they are going to spend N25 billion on a facelift, our own transaction is completely not going to cost the federal government any money,” she said.

“Even for the national theatre, there is a development agency that has said as long as they have seen our plans, they would fund the renovation. We even got a grant from the World Bank before.

“We have built up a public-private-partnership. With the World Bank, different agencies are ready to fund it without costing federal government any money.”

She explained that the consortium had planned to build a 3,000 capacity creative industries university, a 55-hectare creative industries business park and a trade centre on the land surrounding the national theatre.

NATIONAL THEATRE AND ITS PRIVATISATION TROUBLES

In 2007, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) conducted bidding round for the privatisation of the national theatre.

Jadeas emerged the reserved bidder but was later pronounced the preferred bidder when Infrastructica Consortium failed to fulfil the sale conditions.

Due to a change of government, the process was declared inconclusive.

The National Council on Privatisation (NCP) then decided to adopt a private-public partnership model for the theatre and another bidding round held in 2013 in which Topwide emerged as the preferred bidder.

The federal executive council gave its approval to this on August 4, 2013.

To protect its interests,  Jadeas instituted a lawsuit, seeking declarations that its previous dealings with BPE constituted a binding contract.

On October 12, 2016, a stakeholder meeting which Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Lai Mohammed, the minister of information and culture attended resulted in a September 5, 2017 agreement that both companies would work together on the project.

The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding in April 2019; which was reported to have been endorsed by BPE and Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC).