Isyaku’s Cross

Both Ibrahim and Charlotte began their marital life in Lagos, where they had Amina, their first baby who is now 33 years old. They, however, relocated to Monrovia from where they moved on to New York, before moving to London due to his decision to go on self-imposed exile following the 31 December 1983 coup that terminated the Second Republic. But life in London turned awry when, in 1995, Ibrahim reportedly suddenly became hostile to both his wife and children for no apparent reason. He subsequently abandoned the family in London without any means of survival. From then on, Charlotte told this medium, life became a “living hell”.

Charlotte explained that she got so miffed watching him spend so much on the girl whilst the family lived in abject penury that she decided to do something odd. The opportunity came one day, when after a shopping spree for Faith he left the items with his suitcase in one of the rooms in the house, preparatory to leaving London. According to Charlotte: “I went into the room, took out all the things he’d bought out of the shopping bags and put into the bags all the items I had in the washing machine. Then I put the bags into his suitcase. Upon his return, he took the luggage and left for the airport. When he opened his luggage to declare his stuff and found what was in them, he phoned back, howling … I just banged the phone so hard that the hand-piece broke.”

The family was compelled to contend with one traumatic experience after another. For instance, they were evicted from three different homes for defaulting in mortgage payment and/or rent. The first eviction took place when the Ibrahim family lost their 10, Avenue Foch, Paris home. The second was in 1995 when they were sent packing from their 5, Southwick Place, London, W2, family home. Standard Chartered Bank repossessed the £350,000 house purchased with a 1988 loan taken in his name as he ran into repayment default. Losing the five-floor house caused Charlotte indescribable trauma because she turned the house into a befitting edifice before one of Ibrahim’s visits from Nigeria. Without telling her, he took a £300,000 loan, using the house as collateral. He never told his wife of the problem until the day bailiffs came to repossess the property.

Following the development, Ibrahim sent £16,000 to his wife. The money, which he gave to Amina, was, he said, to rent an apartment in West London. The family spent three weeks with one Mr. Galadima searching for an apartment they could rent with the money. There was none. In the end, it only took care of movers’ and storage bills when auctioneers came for the house. Left without a home, she packed herself and children to Umaru Dikko’s Porchester Terrace, Bayswater, home in London, where they stayed for three months.

The family later moved into an apartment at 42, Molyneux Street, London, W1. They were there for seven years before they were evicted, without prior notice, because the owner sold the property. The experience was particularly traumatic because the landlord, would-be buyers and agents kept coming to inspect the house at random. It got so bad that Amina could take it no more, as, each time prospective buyers came, the family had to move outside until the inspection was over. “AVM Abdul Bello once came on a visit when I was having trouble breathing. I had just been discharged from the hospital that morning. I had to move around with oxygen monitors strapped to my body to monitor my heart because of the trauma I was being bombarded with daily,” she lamented.

Perhaps the most traumatic was the 5 July, 2006, eviction Ibrahim’s family suffered when Cheval Property Developments Limited sent them packing from their 21, Norfolk Crescent, home because they could not meet payment terms on mortgage and rudimentary household utility bills. According to Charlotte, after paying £200,000 of the £450,000 mortgage taken in her name from the Bank of Scotland in 2003, Ibrahim suddenly stopped making further payments. She took over the responsibility, using her credit cards, believing that Ibrahim would soon resume the payments. He never did. And when she exhausted her credit and could not continue servicing the mortgage, the bank repossessed the property.

Ibrahim, she admitted, however, later made an attempt to clear the backlog of payments to the Bank of Scotland when he obtained a £540,000 (Bridging Finance) loan from Cheval Property Developments Limited. The loan, secured with a three-monthly interest payment, was facilitated by a family financial adviser. Again, after the initial three monthly payments on the loan, meant to enable them repossess the 21 Norfolk Crescent property, he defaulted. In response, Cheval commenced possession proceedings on the property. Though the company granted additional time for the family to clear up the arrears, none was forthcoming. The property was eventually sold through public auction on 29 May 2008.

Consequently, Charlotte and her children became refugees living with a benevolent British family. “I complied with the eviction order and vacated 21 Norfolk Crescent on 16 June, 2008. That was one of several times he rendered me and my children homeless. The experiences left lasting emotional scars on my children and I. He never appeared while the possession proceedings lasted in court. We were left to account for his neglect and irresponsible behaviour,” Charlotte told this medium.

Refusal to meet mortgage payment is not the only area Ibrahim has let down his family. Charlotte told TheNEWS that he also refused to pay his two children’s school fees. Amina, who now holds a Ph.D, and works with the United Nations’ Special Criminal Court, in Arusha, Tanzania, and Ahmed, his 21-year-old son, suffered as a result. Indeed, Ahmed was on two occasions, ordered out of the classroom in his university for that reason.

At the moment, the trauma is not over for Charlotte. Though she lives with an English friend–in the basement of the house actually–she has until the end of this month to find another home or face the streets one more time. She needs help urgently, a reason why she came to Nigeria with her daughter, on the bill of Niyi Akintola, her solicitor, who equally paid heir hotel bills. “I am tired and need to rest. I have been going through these severe traumatic experiences with Mr. Ibrahim for the past 22 years,” she lamented. Efforts tro reach Ibrahim at press time proved abortive.