An Abuja Chief Magistrate Court sitting at Wuse Zone 2, on Wednesday summoned MTN Nigeria Communications Ltd to appear before it on December 6, for allegedly defaulting to pay rent for a piece of land on where its transmission mast was built.
After listening to the litigant, one Edward Baba, the owner of the land, Magistrate Olubunmi Achegbulu, ordered that the telco be served the court following the failure of the representatives of the company managing the mast on its behalf, failed to appear in court.
The court order followed a suit filed by one Edward Shehu Baba, the owner of Plot 1038 Cassava Street, Wuye District, Abuja, which was allegedly leased to MTN Communications Ltd in 2007.
Baba had told the court that telco secured the land through Future Telecoms Nigeria Ltd for its transmission mast at an annual rent of N1million, adding that the agreement was to elapse after 10 years.
Filing the suit through his lawyer, Mr. Maiyaki Theodore Bala, the litigant decried that though the tenancy agreement lapsed on February 28, 2017, the MTN mast marked ABJ 876A TI263, was still in his premises, without the company either vacating or agreeing to a new lease agreement.
Buba told the court that he suffered “tremendous damages” in the 10 years of the lease, as tenants shunned a four-bedroom flat he built in the compound in which the mast was erected.
He claimed further the flat which was valued for annual rent of N2.5 million and N3 million per annum, remained unrented due to scare of purported “health hazards associated with radiation emissions from the mast.”
In his application, the litigant averred that he had repeatedly asked MTN to vacate his premises or pay the sum of N30m for 10 years at N3m per annum.
According to him, even when the company rejected the proposed fresh agreement, it however failed to relocate the mast from the premises. Buba is therefore praying the court to order the company to pay it the sum of N1.5 million as pro-rated rent for the property from the period of March 1, 2017 to August 31, 2018, and the sum of N500, 000 as cost of filing the suit.
