Those who play too much with fire end up being burnt by it, as controversial businessman Olajide Awosedo has just found out.  Rumoured to have made a career out of robbing Peter to pay Paul, the long arm of justice has finally caught up with him and Jide cannot extricate himself from its iron grip.

The Attorney-General of Lagos State, on behalf of the state government, has slapped Jide with a 26-count charge at the Lagos State Special Offences Court. The fraudulent sale of landed properties belonging to the Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) is just one of several heinous crimes the popular property developer is being accused of.

The property developer-cum-politician allegedly frittered away huge bank loans on his political ambitions. Not only did he fail severally in his bid to become Ogun governor, but the properties he was meant to develop with the money he splurged on his failed campaigns could no longer be completed. This landed him in hot water with the consortium of banks that lent his company money for the choice real estate in Lekki and Ogun State.

The main property in contention, the 24-hectares Victory Park Estate in Lekki was sold by the state government to a company, Knight Rook Limited, with Jide and his wife as main shareholders. The four banks that guaranteed the purchase—Sterling Bank, WEMA Bank, Skye Bank and Unity Bank—were eventually forced to pay for the land when the company couldn’t. Thereafter, they demanded their money back from Jide only to be met with a cold shoulder.

Trying to cut their losses, the consortium of banks took over the landed property, sold part of it to recover some of their money, and passed off the rest to AMCON. But Jide, having failed to learn the error of his ways, allegedly continued to pose as the owner of the property and fraudulently sold a portion of it to 26 unsuspecting buyers.

Following this development, AMCON swooped in and placed Jide’s company Grant Properties under receivership. After allegedly getting away with shady dealings for so many years, the chickens have come home to roost for the Ijebu Ode native who is facing up to 21 years in jail if found guilty.

His sweet-tongue and slick-finger method of conning unwary property buyers and sellers out of their money quickly made him a pariah in the midst of honest men. The majority of those aware of his travails are either shedding crocodile tears or none at all.