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Details have emerged as to why the highly anticipated luxury hotel being erected by serial entrepreneur, Stanley Uzochukwu, which was billed to be commissioned mid last year, did not happen.
Uzochukwu, the face behind Stanel Group, had hoped to expand his business empire to include a Five-Star hotel named Stanel Luxury Hotel, no thanks to an interior designer who succeeded in throwing a spanner in the works. Located in Lagos Island, the hotel had been operating on a very low scale. Requiring expansion and mind-blowing designing of the interior, Stanley contracted a lady named Ayanda Carter, a supposedly gifted South African-born design and architecture guru of Mozambican descent, who is based in Nigeria, for the job.
Carter runs a boutique interior design firm. She was perhaps chosen for the job based on her background as a recipient of the ‘Best Interior Design Studio in Nigeria’ Award. They both signed a deal of N24 million for her services. This was in December 2019.
Three years later, she was yet to complete her part of the deal despite receiving full payment for her services, including flight ticket and all bills for accommodation and logistics, to the tune of N7 million, as well as an extra N7 million to enable her to bring in some people to Nigeria to take measurements of where the goods she was contracted to produce were to be fixed.
The total expenses on Carter for her services totalled N38 million. She ended up only shipping in goods of inferior quality in 12, 40-foot containers, a far cry from what was agreed on. She collected all that money upfront and converted it to her personal use.
Unable to provide a cogent reason for reneging on the agreement, Carter threatened to abandon and sabotage the work. She eventually stopped taking calls, stopped supervising the project and behaved in a manner that caused Uzochukwu to lose more money. Without warning, she made a report to the police alleging that he threatened her. The police invited her to Abuja for questioning, but upon investigation, the truth of the matter began to unravel. A case with Criminal Charge No: CR/102/2023 was instituted against her by the Inspector-General of Police at an Upper Area Court in Abuja.
Carter was charged with criminal breach of trust, cheating and criminal intimidation, contrary to Section 312, 322, and 397 of the Panel Code Act, and she was remanded in Suleja Correctional Centre. After six days in detention, she was granted a bail bond of N100 million and one surety who must be a public servant from Grade Level 13 and above. The judge also ordered her to submit her passport to the registry, as she is not a Nigerian, to prevent her from running to her country after completing her bail condition.
Source: TheWillNigeria | Read More
