ILÉ IYÁN Nigeria Limited Issues Public Statement: Warning Against Brand Impersonation and Clarifying Controversies

The attention of Ile Iyan Nigeria Limited (“Company” or “ILÉ IYÁN”) has been drawn to insinuations on social media that ILÉ IYÁN is now owned and controlled by some entities. The peddlers of this untrue information have also alleged that the Founder/MD/CEO of the Company has been sued for misappropriating the funds of the company and mismanaging the company.

We wish to inform our esteemed customers and the general public that such information is untrue and is being sponsored by mischief makers to obfuscate the real issues surrounding a failed attempt to hijack ILÉ IYÁN and its brand by some investors and minority shareholders of ILÉ IYÁN.

For the avoidance of doubt, seventy (70%) percent of shares in ILÉ IYÁN is owned by the founder/MD/CEO – Sanni Sheriff Kolawole aka Sannikayz. Sannikayz as Founder has invested over 15 years of service into the food catering business. He has successfully catered for numerous customers and driven the business from start-up level to the great height ILÉ IYÁN holds today.

The restaurant’s unique blend of tradition and innovation has captivated diners from around the world, earning it a place of distinction within the culinary landscape. As ILÉ IYÁN continues to thrive and evolve, the Founder remained steadfast in his dedication to upholding the brand’s core values and preserving its storied legacy.

In the face of adversity, the spirit of ILÉ IYÁN endured in its commitment to celebrating Nigerian culture and fostering a sense of community. The ILÉ IYÁN brand has gained over 5,000,000 engagements across all social mediaj platforms: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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Going by the success and uniqueness of thej Brand, an Investor approached the Founder in October 2023, to invest in the Company, upon completion of deliberations, the Founder and the Investor agreed that the Investor would invest some funds in the ILÉ IYÁN in exchange for thirty (30%) percent shares in ILÉ IYÁN. By virtue of the investment, the Investor became the holder of 30% shares in ILÉ IYÁN while the Founder held 70% shares in ILÉ IYÁN.

Worthy of note is that after the investment, the Founder and the Company ensured that the Investor was paid hugeprofit every quarter as return on investment.

Few months after the investment, the Founder travelled outside the country on a short trip to attend to some family obligations. As expected, the Founder handed over interim management of the Company to the Investor for ease of operations. However, upon the Founder’s return, the Founderdiscovered that the Investor has mismanaged the fortune of the Company by jerking up running cost unreasonably and distorting the founding values of the business.

This was to the extent that the Investor was rewarding its associates at the detriment of the business.In fact, a designee of the Investor was reported to have assaulted a female staff of ILÉ IYÁN and this resulted in a bad reputation for the Company. Having considered all these issues, the Company was compelled to ask the Investor and its management team to cease interim management of the Company, moreso, the Founder has returned to Nigeria from his trip abroad.

The decision of the Company to stop management by the Investor did not obviously go well with the Investor and its team. The Investor deployed several gimmicks such as refusing to sign a shareholders’ agreement, hijacking ILÉ IYÁN social media handles, locking up the Company’s outlet in Ikeja, evicting in-house staff at midnight, writing ILÉ IYÁN’s Bankers to freeze the Company’s account. In a show of desperation, the Investor also instituted a Winding-Up action with the intention of winding up the Company and destroying the heritage of the business.

While all these were ongoing, the Investor had secretly incorporated another Company with a very similar name to do the same business in the ILÉ IYÁN Ikeja outlet. The Investor started poaching ILÉ IYÁN’s staff, using the ILÉ IYÁN’s model, social media handles, furniture and business patterns to deceive members of the public and make them patronise the new company under the belief that they were patronising the real ILÉ IYÁN.

To further whip public sympathy, the Investor started propaganda on social media that the Founder mismanaged ILÉ IYÁN and abandoned ILÉ IYÁN after receiving investments from Investors.

The development has forced ILÉ IYÁN to commence legal actions against the Investor, its promoters and its new company. As a law-abiding institution, we are mindful of the fact that when the Court is seized of a matter and it behoves on the parties to allow the Court to decide the matter. This legal responsibility made ILÉ IYÁN Nigeria Limited to avoid social media reactions to the issues surrounding the forceful closure of its Ikeja outlet and the purported re-opening of another company in Ile Iyan’s Ikeja Outlet. We believe in the judicial system, and we are hopeful that justice will be served at the end of the day.

We assure our customers that we are diligently pursuing justice in Court and we will continue to pursue justice within the ambits of the law. We will keep our esteemed customers and the public abreast of developments in the ongoing litigations. In the meantime, we wish to advise our customers that at this moment, only ILÉ IYÁN Lekki outlet is open. ILÉ IYÁN Ikeja is closed and any person/entity representing itself as ILÉ IYÁN Ikeja is an impostor passing off on the original ILÉ IYÁN brand. We urge our customers and the general public to be cautious and mindful of the gimmicks of these impostors who use our model, waiter’s dress code, style, similar menu etc.

As a business, we remain committed to delivering excellent and memorable experiences to our esteemed customers even in these times. We are committed to quality and exemplary service, and we will not be deterred by the propaganda and gimmicks of those who seek to take over our labour of a decade and half.

We urge the public to continue to reach us via
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
08100244709.
www.ileiyan.ng