The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has set to sue Wells Carlton Hotel and Apartments, Asokoro, Abuja, for failing to refund the N6 million reservation fee for the party’s coalition unveiling event which it cancelled.

The party’s lawyer on the matter, Kabiru Abdullahi, disclosed this to People’s Gazette, saying that the hotel caused “the party so much inconvenience and embarrassment.”

On July 1, minutes before midnight and less than 24 hours before the ADC event, Wells Carlton Hotel and Apartments reached out to the organizers of the ADC event, People and Passion Consult Limited to cancel the fully paid booking, citing an ‘internal compliance matter’ as the reason.

Mr Abdullahi speaking on the matter lamented that, “a guarantee was given to us on the venue’s availability, with an invoice of the payment made, but they waited until less than 24 hours before notifying us of the cancellation. Giving us ‘internal compliance’ as the reason for the cancellation without any further explanation. We paid you and you and gave us an invoice, then we went back to our businesses, preparing for the event, only for them to call some minutes before midnight, less than 24 hours to the event which was supposed to take place at 2 p.m. the next day stating that it’s because of internal compliance.”

Citing the hotel’s cancellation message to the party, “We sincerely regret to inform you that due to an internal compliance matter that has just come to our attention, we are unable to proceed with hosting your scheduled event. We are fully aware that the event is less than 24 hours away, and we deeply apologise for the timing and inconvenience this may cause,” Mr Abdullahi pointed out that the company was aware that the event was less than 24 hours and still went ahead to cancel the reservation.

Mr Abdullahi stressed that the hotel’s action constituted a breach of contract and that the company, adding that the hotel was expected to compensate the party for damages.

Mr Abdullahi provided details on the agreement between Wells Carlton and the party, stating that the organizers paid N6,063,000 to the hotel for the venue reservation, which included provision of refreshments for their guests.

He disclosed that a letter demanding the hotel to immediately refund the payment and apologise for the cancellation with the sum of N100 million for damages had been sent to Wells Carlton, adding that if they didn’t comply, they would meet in court.

“We sent them a letter demanding refund of our money, an apology and the sum of N100 million as damages and if they don’t we will meet in court it’s as simple as that because they sent us into a frantic moment to look for alternatives to prepare for the event and had to pay extra money for refreshments for the event. The venue couldn’t contain the participants, they caused us so much inconvenience and they also caused us embarrassment,” Mr Abdullahi said.