Omo-onile Wahala – Bridging the gap

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Omo-onile Wahala – Bridging the gap

Sometime last year I did a piece on land clearing sponsorship transactions in the Lekki axis of Lagos state.

There was a lot of feedback from that piece, with people wanting to know how they could key into the opportunities that land clearing JV deals present. Who would not want to get involved in a transaction that promises not only monetary rewards but also automatically makes them a landowner in locations where land value has the potential to appreciate geometrically within a short space of time?

However, as great at this sounds, the juicy rewards do not come without sweat, and one of the most challenging aspect of these transactions involve dealing with and containing the excesses of omo-onile’s and their agents.

I will narrate just two out of my so many challenging encounters with omo-onile’s and their agents.

The Abijo Encounter

Around January last year, we got hold of a land clearing sponsorship brief. The subject of the transaction was about 200 acres of land at Abijo that we were able to find a suitable investor to take it up.

A Site visit was followed by initial meeting with family representatives where the modalities of the transactions were discussed.

By the end of the next meeting, everyone from the investors, to the family and facilitators knew what to expect as a reward and it was agreed that a draft agreement would be sent to the family representative who had by that time received a postdated cheque for the owo-iwoko (premium which is usually paid before the land is handed over to the investor to commence work).

The idea was that by the time the cheque will be due for withdrawal the remaining loose ends of the transaction would have been properly tied.

The near firmed-up transaction, however began to bulk when the family head went incommunicado and all efforts to get the family head to sign the final draft of the agreement proved abortive. It was not until his cohorts who had been feigning ignorance about his whereabout got wind of the fact that the Force Headquarters was being involved in the case that the family head resurfaced again.

It turned out that while they were in discussions with our client, they were also double dealing with another client who had the deal signed and mobilized security agents ahead of the commencement of the project.

If it was not for the proactiveness on our part and our client, they would have played a fast one on us then vanish into the thin air.

The Ogombo Encounter

A couple of weeks ago, a contact of ours requested that we source for a land clearing sponsorship brief on the Lekki Epe axis for a client of theirs. We set to work and was contacted by an agent with a brief that the investor took interest in and an inspection was scheduled.

On the inspection date, after waiting for well over an hour beyond the agreed time, the omo-onile who was familiar with the terrain and was supposed to lead us to subject property called in to say he could no longer be available without any explanation. He them claimed that the property was very easy to locate and gave a direction to the property, following his direction, we located the property and sent pictures to him and got confirmation that we had indeed located the property.

Just before we left, we received another call from him stating that the property we visited was the wrong one, and that another contact was on his way to lead us to the actual property. After another 30-minute wait, we were able to link up with the said contact who then led us to another site.

Following the inspection, it became obvious that whoever our contact was in talks with did not have the link to the owner as they were neither able to avail us of the relevant documents nor schedule a meeting with the owner.

It seemed like a dead-end until we found another contact who claimed to have the links to the genuine owner of the land. While we were able to finally inspect the land and are already making progress, even though at a slow pace, one needs to be ready for this type of uncoordinated approach when dealing with Omo-onile’s

WHAT’S THE WAY FORWARD?

In my opinion, the biggest hindrance to successfully closing land clearing deals is lack of professionalism on the part of the omo-oniles who more often than not also act as agents in a bid to benefit from both fronts of the transaction (the investor and the family). Majority of the agents they engage to market these deals are freeloaders who are only interested in getting their cut and do not care about due process.

These dramas should however not be unexpected, it is always an advantage when you already brace yourself up for such events. One has to learn how on manage them, know when to hold on in order to get the needed reward or when to back out and avoid getting burnt.

Alternatively, let us at JV Pulse do the brunt work for you!