FIJ
If words could do it, no single human would have a complaint against Landwey Investment Limited, a gigantic real estate investment compnay owned by Olawale Ayilara. The company’s mission statement reads: to make real estate investment accessible in a way that is simple, secure, and profitable. But there are well over a hundred Landwey clients who could stone you if you printed that sentence for them. Two of them didn’t mince words in their assessment of both company and founder: they’re operating a real-estate “ponzi scheme”.
For a number of reasons, including manipulation by the real-estate company, an unforgiving PR machinery that grinds anything standing in its way, and an obnoxious contract that protects the company while damaging the clients, most of Landwey’s clients would rather not talk to the press, which explains why FIJ managed to speak with only 10 of them. And it is understandable.
For his age, Ayilara boasts an impressive connection to monarchical and political power, a long list of which includes Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the governor of Lagos, and Adeyeye Ogunwusi, the Ooni of Ife. Landwey’s clients and the people around them often speak about how frequently Ayilara boasts of his relationship with these two, in addition to the police and the judiciary, whenever deservedly angry clients threaten fire and brimstone. He may just be 35, but Ayilara moves everywhere with a police escort.
Fuelled by his multibillions, he operates a heavily-oiled PR machinery that has both Nigerian and foreign media under his grip, and funds a robust digital media team that periodically feeds the public with mouth-watering images of housing offers. To cap it all, Landwey and Ayilara possess deep-enough pockets to hire some of the most devious lawyers around, one proof of which is in the company’s final agreement with prospective clients, as can be seen here.
However, even when Landwey’s clients have tended to be negatively disposed to media interviews, they continue to scamper everywhere for help, including the DMs of FIJ and its founder, sometimes in the hope they can write about their plight without being named, initiate any sort of dispute settlement meeting or assist in putting a class action together.
