The Court of Appeal, Lagos Division, has set aside the 2014 judgment of the Federal High Court in Lagos that authorised Guaranty Trust Bank Plc (GTBank) to take possession of a N30 billion, 44-room mansion in Ikoyi, Lagos, owned by Alhaji Agboola Abiola, son of the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola.
In a unanimous judgment delivered on 18 June 2025, and with the Certified True Copy dated 19 June 2025, the appellate court declared the foreclosure invalid, citing irregularities in the legal mortgage that GTBank had used to substantiate its claim to the property.
Justice Paul Bassi, delivering the lead judgment, stated that the Federal High Court had erred by failing to address credible allegations of forgery and document manipulation raised by the appellants.
The appeal marked CA/L/888/2014 was Instituted by RCN Network Limited and Alhaji Si-Nurani Abiola as appellants, with GTBank as the sole respondent.
The appellants challenged the 20 June 2014 decision of the lower court, which had permitted GTBank to enforce the foreclosure.
The appellants counsel, Dr Charles Adeogun-Phillips (SAN), argued that the second appellant had not signed the disputed deed.
While RCN Networks admitted to signing the deed, the authenticity of the tripartite legal mortgage presented by GTBank was heavily contested.
Abiola maintained that the execution page, purportedly bearing his signature, was fraudulently lifted from another document and attached to the mortgage deed.
Justice Bassi held that the discrepancies in GTBank’s mortgage documents undermined their validity. He highlighted inconsistencies in pagination, noting that the mortgage deed was numbered ‘2 of 9’ through ‘9 of 9′, while the execution page was marked ’11 of 17’, suggesting it came from another set of documents.
‘This inconsistency in pagination alone casts a serious cloud over the authenticity of the mortgage deed’, Justice Bassi ruled.
The appellants also accused GTBank of unilaterally consolidating two separate loan agreements without their consent. They alleged the bank had used a document related to a N508 million loan to recover a separate N1 billion facility, even after liquidating shares pledged as security.
Although police investigations into the forgery allegations yielded contradictory findings — one recommending arbitration and another dismissing the claims — the Court of Appeal determined these reports were insufficient to address the glaring red flags in the mortgage deed.
‘The lower court failed in its duty by ignoring these material discrepancies and focusing solely on interpreting Clause 6 of a suspect document. A court cannot base its judgment on a document whose integrity is in serious doubt’, the court held.
The appellate court concluded that GTBank lacked legal grounds to appoint a receiver or enforce foreclosure on the Ikoyi property, deeming the mortgage fundamentally flawed.
As a result, the Court of Appeal nullified the Federal High Court’s judgment and invalidated the foreclosure. Both parties were ordered to bear their respective legal costs.
Justice Bassi stated, ‘The obvious conclusion is that the lower court was in error in determining the rights of the parties based on a contentious document allegedly forged. This court cannot endorse the decision of the lower court on this basis. I therefore resolve the issue in favour of the appellant’.
Justices Polycarp Kwahar and Justice Abdulaziz Anka concurred with Justice Bassi’s judgment, unanimously setting aside the trial court’s decision.
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