As with all fathers who want the best for their daughters, Chief Leemon Ikpea, the chairman of Lee Engineering and Construction Company, went above and beyond fatherly responsibilities to give his daughters a comfortable life in their marriages. Augusta and Gina may have outgrown their billionaire dad’s laps, but even in marriage, they never outgrew his tender heart and unending benevolence. Hence, when Gina got married to Jerry Unague, Chief Ikpea made marriage a Nirvana on earth for them. He bought the new couple a stately home in Lekki, employed Jerry in his company on a peerless salary package and gifted the couple a Range Rover, sources said.
Gina’s eponymous luxury store is the product of her father’s billions. The couple has three kids.
Chief Ikpea extended the same generousity and more to Augusta when he married Damian Osiewe Enaholo. In 2019, Chief Ikpea solely funded Augusta’s Royal Oaks Event Centre, a multipurpose state-of-the-art event centre in Lekki, commissioned in 2019 by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. The event centre is valued at about N850m. 43-year-old Damian, who at a point was in the employ of Lee Engineering, is the chairman of Royal Oaks.
But, greed became the sword in the sons-in-law’s guts, the hands twisting and thrusting it deeper, theirs. As relationship between Chief Ikpea and his wife, Agnes, deteriorated due to her acrimonious and antagonistic ways, Augusta and Gina took sides with their nescient mum with the overt support of their husbands. It then became their world against Chief Ikpea’s.
He reckoned that his sons-in-law that had benefitted immensely from him should be impartial but was shocked to discover that they were actually inflaming the crisis. Embittered but left with no choice, he sacked Jerry and Damian from his company but did not stop supporting them as his daughters were in their care.
A source, privy to happenings in the Ikpea family, told this medium that Jerry and Damian’s knowledge of Chief Ikpea’s vast wealth made them greedy and prodded them to start plotting a take-over by influencing their wives to keep piling heat on their father. “Damian and Jerry are cowboys. They know that as the husbands of his two eldest daughters, they stand a chance of being made directors while also inheriting part of his wealth. This was why they supported their wives who were on the side of their mother in battling Chief Ikpea.
When Chief found out that those who were supposed to be positive influences on his daughters were the real crooked wood disrupting the fire, he sacked them but did not stop supporting them through their wives,” said the source.
The source said further that Jerry and Damian who have invested in oil and gas companies still do business with Lee Engineering. For now, Chief Ikpea knows who is on his side and who is not; just as he knows those who want him alive and those that want him dead. The billionaire, obviously, has resolved to stay alive and has, therefore, begun the process of weaning himself of the dead woods causing him unnecessary high blood pressure. The first step in this direction is suing for divorce from his wife.
He has won the first round of the suit with the pronouncement, last February, of the High Court in Benin, Edo State, that Agnes should vacate the family’s Banana Island, Ikoyi, home while Chief Ikpea should get her a decent accommodation in the Victoria Island, Lekki or anywhere convenient in Lagos outside of Banana Island. The Chief has promptly complied by getting her a place in Victoria Island, which her lawyers have acknowledged. As for the sons-in-law, the source disclosed that Chief has made a clean break from them.
Meanwhile, there were mixed opinions and reactions to the February 17 ruling by Justice Joseph Itsebaga Acha of the Edo State High Court that pending the determination of the substantive suit, Agnes should vacate the family house as prayed by Chief Ikpea. Acha also said Agnes could alternatively move into Chief Ikpea’s GRA Benin residence temporarily while ordering him to deposit a N5million bank guarantee with the court to cater for Agnes’ expenses throughout the duration of the suit.
Reacting to the allegations of bias against him, Justice Acha said that he stands by his ruling because, “the need to protect and safeguard the lives of the parties remains my primary concern more than anything else.” Speaking on the application by Agnes urging the court to transfer the petition for dissolution of marriage to Lagos State judiciary for determination, Acha said having considered arguments for and against the application, he found no merit in the request.
