NIGERIANS are criticising the Federal Government’s decision to demolish over $47 million Landmark Leisure Beach, which left over 1,000 staff members jobless, noting that it shows that the nation is not yet serious with attracting investors.

Speaking on The KK Show via YouTube on Sunday, Onwuanibe revealed that he received just seven days’ notice before the demolition of the beach, noting that neither he nor his company was not compensated.

“Let’s put this into perspective, Landmark consists of three parts—our business, our leisure, and our lifestyle. What was demolished was our leisure business, a significant part of both our revenue and our physical infrastructure. The initial reaction was shock, and then anger. You go through the five stages of grief—shock, anger, bargaining, concern, and finally acceptance,” he said.

Onwuanibe said that the beach site had been acquired in 2006 for $17 million and he borrowed $30 million loan for its development, noting that it was his 27 years of hard work.

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“It was my life’s work—27 years of hunting, farming, and working. Six years ago, we borrowed $30 million to develop that beach. Half of that money was spent on infrastructure you couldn’t even see, like underground drainage, water reticulation systems, and fiber-optic cables. The demolition wiped out six years of investment in six hours,” he said, disclosing that the demolition upended the beach’s 160,000 members and violated existing contracts.

“We had over 1,000 employees and 50 small and medium enterprises directly impacted. Over 4,000 people were employed, and with Nigeria’s dependency factor of 16, the ripple effects are unimaginable,” he further said.

“We had N9.2 billion of members’ money in our accounts. There were over 200 contracts—supply of water, fumigation, lifeguard services—all of which had to be renegotiated. Sometimes, you wish there was a natural disaster so you could invoke force majeure, but this wasn’t the case,” he said.

He said the demolition equally affected the community negatively.

“The guy parking cars on the streets lost his job. The person selling sweets at the gate had no customers. Hotels built outside Landmark that thrived on the four and a half million annual visitors were affected.”

Mr Onwuanibe further said that he would relocated his business to three Nigerian states and two African nations.

Spat with Nigerian government

Mr Onwuanibe did his business without interruptions until Mr Bola Tinubu became president and appointed Engr Dave Umahi as works minister. Mr Umahi announced the commencement of Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project in the first quarter of 2024.

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The contract was awarded to Hi Tech Construction Company owned by a Lebanese and long-time friend of Mr Tinubu named Mr Gilbert Chagoury.

In awarding the contract, the minister announced that all those affected by the project would be compensated. This included those whose properties would be demolished.

However, on May 1, Mr Umahi announced that Landmark Group and its CEO were only playing to the gallery, stating that the company’s infrastructure was not impacted by the coastal development.

“Mr President says that this development must have two factors. One is the fear of God, the second one is human face, and that’s what we have tried to do. We’ve taken hard decisions. In some cases, we have followed the gazetted routes. In other cases, we have realigned to the coastal line, majorly. And the coastal line from the shore, 250 metres by the Supreme Court judgement, belongs to the Federal Government. 

“I talk in particular about Landmark. There is none of his infrastructure that is affected. I agree that there are some people he sublet the place to, but the shoreline was never given to him by the Oniru family. So, these people he sublet to, erected some caravans, makeshifts, so on and so forth within the shoreline. And if you go to the shoreline, you will see a demarcation of what was given to him and you will see a different colour of the sand and you see by reason of the sand filling, the point that the sand is different colour. So, we are dealing with these people that he sublet the shoreline to illegally.”

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However, Mr Onwuanibe does not believe that story. In fact, through his Landmark Group, he issued a statement, demanding compensation from the Nigerian government over the demolition of his investment.

“We are currently picking up the pieces following the demolition of almost N42 billion worth of supporting infrastructure and buildings, and the loss of nearly half our company revenue,’” he said, through the management of Landmark Group on Friday.

“We are focused on working with the government to receive adequate compensation required to jumpstart the rest of the once thriving Landmark part of the Landmark Ecosystem and a new family-centric beach in a different waterfront location.

“This will help to preserve the sustenance of the thousands of families whose livelihoods have been threatened by the demolition as well as recreate a platform for many of the small and micro businesses that were incubated on the Landmark Beach and adjoining beach resorts that were recently demolished,” the statement read in part.

Nigerians tackle FG

However, Nigerians believe that the demolition of Landmark’s investment is a bad example to investors.

An X user, @djokaymegamixe, wrote: “Now tell me, what better way to demarket Nigeria than actions like this by the government, which has been junketing the world, looking for investors? Is this how to attract investors?”

Another X user, @IruefiNG, posted a long thread on Landmark Beach demolition. He wrote: “Bought the land for $17m cash in 2006. Borrowed $30m to develop it. It became one of the biggest tourist attractions in the state, paying hundreds of millions in taxes to the state coffers. Over 1000 persons directly and indirectly employed. You’d think that a sensible government would protect such an investment. But not APC. They are too myopic and incompetent for that. Without any EIA done, they went on to hurriedly begin construction which BTW was awarded to a company that a member of the president’s family has stakes in. Unfortunately, their incompetence in not doing an EIA cost them as billions of dollars worth of communication cables passed through the same route. Project abandoned. No compensation paid. Millions of dollars lost.”

A social media critic, @FS_Yusuf, posted Landmark CEO’s comment during the interview and asked, rhetorically, whether this was how to attract investments in other nations.

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“My $30,000,000 million project was demolished without a single compensation by the government. ~ Paul Onwuanibe (CEO of Landmark Lagos) Is this how to attract investors???”

An economist, Ms Kate Iruke, said the government must endeavour to compensate Landmark Africa “to show investors that it cares about investments.”

“If the government does not do that, some investments may begin to have a rethink. I have always maintained that the government should never have a back and forth with the private sector when a public infrastructure is mooted. Compensate everyone to ensure that investors remain confident about putting their money down here,” Ms Iruke noted.