From his assessment, the High Commissioner alleged that vested interests were at play.
A fresh diplomatic and legal dimension has emerged in the protracted River Park Estate crisis in Nigerian capital Abuja, as Ghana moves to escalate the dispute to the ECOWAS Court following allegations of misconduct, document falsification and breach of agreement by the Nigerian authorities.
Speaking during an interview with JoyTV Ghana, the Ghana’s High Commissioner to Nigeria, Baba Jamal, confirmed that the dispute has now assumed a regional dimension, with Accra formally involving ECOWAS after earlier attempts at resolution failed.
“This problem started before I assumed office in Nigeria as High Commissioner,” Jamal said, noting that he had earlier attended meetings where both sides presented their cases.
From his assessment, the High Commissioner alleged that vested interests were at play.
“What I can make out of all this is that some individuals are trying to push themselves or push their power to take over things that do not belong to them,” he said.
Jamal revealed that Ghana initially exercised restraint to protect bilateral relations with Nigeria.
“We did not want to escalate this matter because we did not want this particular case to affect the excellent relationship between Ghana and Nigeria,” he said, describing the dispute as “a simple business crisis” that had been complicated by “intransigent positions.”
However, he confirmed that Ghana has now formally moved the matter to the ECOWAS level.
“When I became the High Commissioner, we properly briefed Accra, and that resulted in an official petition to ECOWAS,” he disclosed.
According to him, ECOWAS officials requested comprehensive documentation, which Ghana is now submitting.
“As I speak to you today, I have signed a letter that is supposed to send the official documentation and details,” Jamal said. “Possibly, it will reach ECOWAS tomorrow.”
He added that the expectation is for a resolution without further escalation.
“We are hoping that we will be able to resolve this matter without it escalating further,” Jamal said, confirming that the dispute is now headed to the ECOWAS Court for adjudication.
Speaking also during the interview with Joy TV Ghana, the JonahCapital CEO, Kojo Mensah said his company was taken by surprise by actions of Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), insisting that official claims that his firm failed to attend meetings were false.
“In fact, it came to us as a surprise. The CAC never wrote to us,” Mensah said.
“They wrote a letter to the Attorney General, peddling lies that we did not turn up for the meeting.”
He challenged the CAC’s position by pointing to video evidence posted by the CAC Commissioner himself.
“The CAC Registrar-General is fond of posting videos of everything he does, so we have the video which he himself posted on his CAC Instagram, showing our lawyers being present and also the representative of the Attorney General being present for the meeting,” he stated.
Mensah further insisted that his company’s ownership of River Park Estate is backed by extensive documentation, some dating as far back as 2012.
“This is the share certificate they sent to us,” Mensah said. “These are some of the documents we shared with the Nigerian police, along with a copious number of documents which established our ownership of the estate.”
He added that the company also possesses FedEx records linked to the transmission of the documents in 2012.
On the issue of possible legal action against the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Mensah said a final decision has not yet been taken, although concerns have been formally raised.
“We have not even made the decision of whether we are going to sue the FCT Minister for the breach or alleged breach of the agreement,” he explained. “They wrote to us after the FCT Minister made his pronouncement and asked us to preserve the agreement.”
He disclosed that Jonah Capital had responded by flagging issues with the termination clause of the agreement and requesting further engagement.
“We wrote to the General Counsel that even though we have commenced the exercise that we have been asked to do, we have issues with the clause of termination, and we have asked for a meeting to engage,” he said.
SaharaReporters had reported that the Nigerian minister of industry, trade and investment, Dr Jumoke Oduwole, was petitioned by two Abuja-based firms, the Jonah Capital Limited and Houses for Africa Limited, to probe the excesses of the Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Hussaini Ishaq Magaji, SAN.
Petitioning on behalf of the two firms, Ghanaian investor, Sir Samuel Esson Jonah, KBE, had asked the Nigerian trade minister to investigate the “unlawful expropriation of shares, extrajudicial removal of directors and retrospective invalidation of corporate filings” by the CAC Registrar-General, Magaji.
In the petition dated 8 December 2025, Jonah accused the CAC Registrar-General of unilaterally reversing nearly two decades of corporate records relating to JonahCapital Nigeria Ltd and Houses for Africa Nigeria Ltd.
He noted that these actions had destabilised ownership, management, and ongoing litigation surrounding the companies.
According to the petition, the CAC Registrar-General allegedly “reverted the status of the Company back to incorporation, which is 2006 in the case of JonahCapital and 2007 in the case of Houses for Africa Nigeria Ltd,” despite the fact that only “three (3) filings were in contention” and those filings are already before the Federal High Court.
The business investor stressed that the Registrar-General was fully aware of the pending court actions, stating that CAC had been “duly served with the Originating Processes and Motion for Interlocutory Injunction weeks before the administrative actions complained of were taken.”
In strongly worded language, Jonah argued that the actions of the CAC amount to a constitutional breach.
“The law is settled that issues revolving around corporate governance and disputes arising from it fall exclusively within the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court pursuant to Section 251(1)(e) of the 1999 Constitution,” he wrote, adding that “judicial powers are vested in the Courts to determine disputes between persons and authorities.”
He further accused the Registrar-General of overstepping his authority by “inviting disputing parties, unilaterally cancelling filings, altering directorship records and expropriating shareholdings,” actions which he said “constitute the exercise of judicial powers that the Constitution exclusively vests in the Courts.”
Jonah noted that Mr. Magaji, being a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, ought to have known better. “Once a party is served with an application for injunction, that party must maintain status quo and refrain from taking any step capable of foisting a fait accompli on the Court,” the petition stated.
The petition warned of severe commercial consequences arising from the CAC’s actions, particularly concerning investments linked to River Park Estate.
Jonah said the administrative decisions could lead to “potential economic losses of an unprecedented scale,” disrupt banking relationships, and weaken the companies’ legal standing in ongoing lawsuits.