Victor Bala Kona, a former Peoples Democratic Party chairman in Taraba State, has been accused of harassment and threatening to wrongfully evict a tenant in his commercial property, the Vicbalkon Towers, located in the Utako area of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

The tenant, CDN Oil and Lubricants, informed Peoples Gazette that since taking up office space at the building of eight floors, the 2023 PDP Taraba governorship aspirant has resorted to different illegal eviction tactics in violation of Nigeria’s tenancy law.

“We moved into Vicbalkon Towers in August 2021, after paying N1,150,000 a year’s rent and N162,500 in service charge respectively,” Vivian Agwe Orim, the Vice President Legal of CDN Oil and Lubricants told The Gazette.

Ms Orim said their problem started when they discovered that the facility had no electricity and relied solely on a generating plant for power. “This was after paying for the eighth floor with the understanding that the building had a functioning elevator.

“At the time of inspecting the facility, a generator powered the property. This led us to believe that the building had electricity,” Ms Orim said, adding that “when we fully moved in, we discovered that the facility manager had deceived us into taking the place.”

However, an agreement was reached between the tenant and the facility manager, Samson Nwabueze, that CDN would cover the fuel expenses pending the installation of electricity. It would be months before the property was connected to electricity.

In the meantime, Ms Orim said their company was responsible for supplying the diesel that powered the office for over six months. Although electricity has now been installed, the company said it is yet to be refunded as of the time of filing this report.

Following a series of complaints made to the management of Vicbalkon Towers, Ms Orim said Mr Kona himself would reply to CDN with eviction threats. According to her, the politician employed different tactics to frustrate their business and force them to vacate the office.

On March 15, amid a nationwide power outage caused by the national grid collapse and acute fuel scarcity, CDN said it fuelled the facility’s generating plant to run its business, but “Mr Kona forbade the security personnel from running the generator for our business.

“When we asked them if Mr Kona was aware that we purchased the diesel that was in the generator, the security men requested for the company’s bank account details, saying that Mr Kona was ready to refund us our rent money,” Ms Orim said.

Ms Orim said that the directive by the politician not to turn on the generator on a business day halted their operations and that their staff and clients had to scale long flights of stairs to reach the 8th floor because the building elevator won’t function without electricity.

“There was one time that we had a client we’d invested months pursuing come to our office to close a deal worth millions. On that day, there was no light and the building staff were instructed not to turn on the generator. Our client had to walk up and down eight floors.

Ms Orim said, “That was the last time that we heard from the client. Concerning the light issue, Mr Kona later employed the services of a second facility manager called Basil, who attempted a truce, but the truce failed, and we are still in darkness.”

The Gazette contacted Mr Basil for comments, but he refrained from speaking about the generator saga, assuring that the issue between Vicbalkon Towers and CDN was set to be resolved when the Taraba governorship aspirant was in town.

When asked how Vicbalkon Towers expected the tenant to conduct their business without electricity until his principal’s return, Mr Basil kept mum.

Efforts to reach Mr Kona and the other facility manager, Mr Nwabueze, proved abortive as they refused to answer or return calls and messages from The Gazette.