Tunji Oyelade (pseudonym), a Lagos resident, paid N250,000 to agent Isaac Kunle Olagunju for an apartment in December. When it was time to move in, Olagunju became evasive. He signed an undertaking to initiate a refund using his container-office as collateral. Oyelade later figured the container collateral was part of another fraudulent scheme.
Oyelade told FIJ that he met Olagunju through his fiancée, who met the agent on Facebook. Olagunju presented the couple with an array of apartment options.
Oyelade said they planned for his fiancée to move into the apartment first. After their marriage, he would then join her. This plan would later be truncated by Olagunju whom they later figured had defrauded others like them.
After Oyelade’s fiancée had seen the apartment at Ijako Market, Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, they agreed to make the N250,000 payment after inspecting it.
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“On the 2nd of January, I and my fiancée went to the place to check it together. After there, we moved to his container office where he issued a one-year receipt for us,” Oyelade recollected.
The agreement between the couple and Olagunju was for them to move into the apartment on January 15. Because he had been living in the apartment himself, Olagunju requested a little time to move out, a request that was easily granted since the agreement was for them to move into the apartment on January 15.
Three days to when the couple planned to move into the house, Olagunju began to manufacture excuses.
“He started cooking up some cock and bull stories. He said his in-law got him arrested and locked him up. He also said his wife was kidnapped. He was telling a series of lies. The whole thing continued like that,” Oyelade said.
“It was my fiancée who was mediating between everything. So, I said that if we don’t move into the house by January 13, he should refund our money.”
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On January 13, we stormed the place but he had moved out. Fortunately, we met the landlord. That was when we knew we had been defrauded. The landlord said nothing was given to him, and that he personally sent Olagunju out of that house because of his nefarious acts.
“We were still lurking around the place, we didn’t leave immediately. We didn’t tell him that we were around, and he started cooking up another lie on the phone. But we had made some findings in that community. I later got to know that someone told him that we went to ask of him in his office,” Oyelade told FIJ.
“He called that he was around. We didn’t tell him anything. We only told him that all we needed was the accommodation or the refund. Then he started calling people and doing all the drama that I would never understand. That was how the whole thing became so loud that people started to join us.
“In that process, a single mother joined us and said that the same man had duped her.”
While the altercations were ongoing, someone who Oyelade found out to be a leader of the house agents association, denied ever knowing Olagunju.
The man, however, pleaded on Olagunju’s behalf to be granted a 20-day grace period with an additional five to refund the money. Failure to do that would lead to selling off of the container office Oyelade worked in.
“Both of us agreed and we signed an undertaking,” Oyelade told FIJ.
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A picture of Olagunju signing the undertaking
After the 25-day grace period, Olagunju easily obliged to the sale of his container office.
“Unknown to us, the matter would not end like that. It was when we wanted to sell the container that a woman, who sold the container to him said it would be problematic because someone else who Olagunju was owing also came. When the person came, he said he was duped N500,000. The woman also said Olagunju was yet to balance her N100,000. That was how the whole situation became messier,” Oyelade explained.
FIJ called two phone lines belonging to Olagunju on Thursday, but he didn’t take his calls. He has also not responded to FIJ’s text.
The post ‘House Agent’ Isaac Kunle Olagunju Swaps Lagos Couple’s N250,000 Rent for Crooked Collateral appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.