• Chief Momodu says GIPC shut down his restaurant at Osu without any reason
• He said, people started harassing him after the launch of the restaurant
• He described his restaurant business as a “wrong investment”
Ayòbámidélé Àbáyòmí Ojútelégàn Àjàní Momodu, popularly known as Chief Dele Momodu, has indicated that the Ghana Investment Promotions Centre (GIPC) shut down his Ovation restaurant without any reason.
According to him, setting up the restaurant during President Kufuor’s administration at Osu, a suburb in Ghana as a foreigner was either “a wrong investment” or his company Ovation International was ahead of its time.
Chief Momodu told Bridget Otoo on the ‘One on One show’ that, the restaurant was to promote tourism in Ghana, and after its official launch, people started sabotaging him.
He explained that after the restaurant was opened, “unfortunately, I don’t know, maybe there was a competition or some people just don’t feel comfortable, every day there was one form of harassment to the other and we had spent initially over half a million dollars on that project…”
“if I tell you what we went through, ah…,” Momodu exclaimed.
Recounting the circumstances that led to its abrupt closure by GIPC, Chief Momodu said, “I came in one day and the manager called me and said Chief, GIPC came and shut down the place and I’m like shut down my restaurant; what have we done wrong?”
Chief Momodu added: “manager said nobody told them…all the meat, everything went bad. So, I reached out to my late friend, the then Vice President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama – great man, great man – I called him and he asked what happened and said he will investigate.
“He came back to me and said nobody is saying anything, everyone that he calls said they don’t know anything about it. I called Alhaji Asoma Banda – who is my godfather – I told him what has happened to me and he drove himself – then he was still younger than now – he [Alhaji Asoma Banda] drove himself to GIPC, same story, nothing, then I left.
“I called my friend the late Steve Mawuenyega and I said, Steve [this is what has happened to me], he asked where I was and I told him I was in Barbados; and he said ‘ah the boss of GIPC just left Barbados today – and we were staying in the same hotel, I didn’t know’ – he [Steve] said I shouldn’t worry, he will call him and when I return, we will go and see him.”
Dele Momodu indicated that, when he returned from Barbados, he went to GIPC with his late friend Steve Mawuenyega, they met the GIPC boss, he asked for his file at GIPC and his file was empty.
The man looked at me and asked, “Chief, who have you offended in Ghana? I told him, I have no idea and you will not believe it, all I got was a verbal apology,” Chief Dele Momodu said.
When asked if he thinks the shut down of the restaurant was a result of his involvement in politics, Dele Momodu said at the time, he wasn’t involved in any politics in Ghana but he was only involved in developmental projects.
“I have always promoted Ghana to the world,” he stressed.
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
