 |
| Mr. & Mrs Saheed & Funmilayo Lawal….Winner of the brand New Lekki Land |
you feel if you staked your last penny on a lotto game that eventually earned
you miserable insults from your wife for ‘using money our family ought to use
to eat to play lotto?’; But two weeks after the odd experience, you were away
for a casual work in another city and same wife of yours, calls to inform you
that the number you staked has won your family a land, a multi-million Naira
land in a highbrow area in a fancy city like Lagos! That was the fairy tale
experience of Saheed Lawal, an Ijebu Igbo—Ogun State based house
painter and his wife, Oluwafunmilayo, a
teacher who earns a measly Seven thousand Naira per month at a private School
in Ijebu Igbo.
who participated in the ongoing Imperial
City promo, 2016, a two month lotto Campaign organized by Channel Drill Resources Ltd in
conjunction with the Elegushi Royal Family of Ikate-Land—Lagos and Golden Chance Lotto won a whooping N42 million Naira worth of land
in the newly designed Imperial
International Business City,
Lekki—Lagos.
Nigerians especially the ordinary people in the society according to Mr. Femi Akioye, the MD/CEO of Channel Drill Resources Ltd rewarded over 15 Nigerians with One million Naira each, over 36 lucky Nigerians with N500; 000 and
over 50 other winners with consolation prizes ranging from N100, 000 to N50,000
in cash.
 |
| Saheed Lawal…The New Millionaire in town |
at Radisson Blue Hotel, Ozumba Mbadiwe
Victoria Island-Lagos on Thursday 24th of November, 2016, the
winners were given their prizes before representatives of Lagos Lottery Board, Kedari
Capital Finance House, Golden Chance Lotto and Inter-Switch Ltd. The event which had
other dignitaries from various organizations in attendance had Mr. Femi Akioye (MD/CEO, Channel Drill
Resources) Mrs. Ife Fashola (MD/CEO,
Kedari Capital Finance), Mr. Roland
Samuel (Lagos Lottery Board) and Mrs.
Peju Akinbiyi (Marketing Director, Golden Chance Lotto) among other dignitaries
honoring the lucky winners with their money drafts and the grand winner with
his land documents. The Imperial City
Promo runs from November 17 to January 1st 2016.
Million Naira worth of land, Mr. Saheed
Lawal and his humble wife Oluwafunmilayo shared the story of
their sudden grass-to-grace success with your Africa’s Number 1 Celebrity
Encounter blog, Asabeafrika which
happens to be the first online media platform to interview the new millionaire
couple in town. It is a moving story that will give you a hope renewal. Enjoy
the excerpts
 |
| Funmi & Saheed Lawal in rare pose with Mr. Oluwafemi James Adejuwon CEO, Scooba Agency (R) and the GDA |
 |
| Funmi & Saheed Lawal with the GDA |
Jackpot…
the number that won you a land?
surprising because that particular day I was with my younger brother when I
played the game, I had nothing on me. The last money on me was just N500 and I had borrowed the money from
someone to take care of my private needs. But all the same, I had an urge to
stake out of the money. Where I played the game (At Ijebu-Igbo-Haruna Junction)
I had wanted to stake just N200 out of the N500 but somehow, the machine brought
out N500 as the price for the game I played. I was furious but it was my
younger brother who enlightened me that it was not the normal lotto we do play.
That it is a promotional lotto (Imerial City Promo), that even if I
pressed N1 on the game, it will
print out N500 as that is the standard price for the game; and the lotto
agent said I must pay because that was
what the number I played brought out for me. I felt so uncomfortable dropping
the entire N500 on me because both my wife and kids at home had nothing to eat
that very night and we relied on that money (N500). I had calculated that if I can
stake just N200 I will still have a balance of N300 and that could take us
through the night until I get a job to do the next day. When I returned home
and told my wife how the game charged my entire money, she became very angry
and I had to plead with her that night because truly, truly, that money was our
very last card. We were still recuperating from the shock when I got a call
from a customer (Baba Gafo) to come and do a painting job in Ibadan. So, I left Ijebu-Igbo for Ibadan.
 |
| Mr. Saheed Lawal, the new owner of the N42 Million Naira Imperial City Promo Land in Lekki |
to Ibadan, the contractor said he was
not going to give me the job again. Mind you, when I was leaving Ijebu-Igbo,
I borrowed the money for my transport to Ibadan
from my wife. So, that was the last money that took me to Ibadan with the hope that, after working, I will be rich enough to
transport myself back to Ijebu-Igbo.
But it was a wrong calculation; the contractor said he was not going to give me
the job any longer. I became very depressed but thank God for Baba
Gafo, he tried his best and made sure I got another deal which kept me
in Ibadan for days. Unknown to me,
Golden Chance has been looking for me in Lagos after the raffle draw brought out my number as the authentic
winner of the grand prize. They managed to reach out to my wife through their
agent in Ijebu-Igbo telling her to inform me about a new development.
They didn’t give the full details, initially. They only told her to look for me
that my attention is needed urgently. She began to call my phone but it didn’t
go through because my battery was down and there was no means to get across to
my wife as well. It was a very tedious one for her. She tried severally not
until I went to charge my phone somewhere in Ibadan. In fact, I kept
it there. So, I went to collect the phone later in the day and immediately I
switched on the phone, it was my wife’s message that popped in. I said ‘ok, let me call this woman’ and
immediately I called her phone, she shouted angrily at me saying ‘How will you just go on a journey and
switch off your phone? Why do you behave like this?’. Then she said again ‘How about the ticket you played the other
time that you said you mistakenly played with your last money?’. I said ‘oh, it is in my younger brother’s shop’.
In fact, my younger brother didn’t even know where I kept the ticket inside his
shop. I was the one who now directed my wife to the exact spot I hid the ticket
and she got the ticket there. Still, she didn’t tell me what the fuzz was all
about. So, I called her back and said ‘So,
why are you asking me about the
ticket?’. She now told me everything, that my brother was called from Golden
Chance that someone staked a lotto number from his shop. I said ‘so, what did they say about the ticket?’.
She said ‘they have not said anything
than the fact that the person has won a jackpot but they didn’t tell her the full details of the money’.
I said ‘ok, I am returning to Ijebu-Igbo
now’ and that was how I left Ibadan and returned to Ijebu-Igbo. The next day, I visited Golden Chance office and
they just told me to go get dressed up, that we are going to Sagamu (Zonal office). I said ‘Sagamu? But, I don’t have any money on
me o, or is it the little money I brought home yesterday that I will start
spending to Sagamu again?’. It was at that junction that I was informed
about my jackpot. They said ‘You won a fortune’. I asked them, ‘what kind of fortune?’ and they said ‘a land worth forty-two million Naira’.
I was dazed. I said ‘No, that cannot be true. It is a lie’. But when I saw
their reaction and the way they quickly released twenty thousand naira for me that I should use that for
transportation, I began to take them serious. Yesterday, when we arrived here
(Lagos) and we were welcomed and entertained, I became overwhelmed with joy. I
mean, I have never experienced this kind of thing in my life and I never knew
it could happen to me. To be very honest with you, I never expected it to turn
out like this.
 |
| The Lawals with their Goodness & Mercy |
 |
| The GDA poses with the Lawals & their Prophetic kids, Goodness & Mercy |
lotto before this luck?
playing lotto now for the past two years. It has been up to two years and today
I can say I am blessed.
anger from your wife. How did she now react when she heard about your winnings?
was angry that night but on getting to see the result, she became happy because
God is merciful. God is indeed merciful to us.
you went to paint in Ibadan rejected you, saying
he is not giving you the job again. Has he heard about your new status?
think so, maybe he will read it in the news and watch it on the television but
I am very grateful to Baba Gafo because he was very kind
to me that day. He showed me kindness and today I thank God for setting me on a
new slate entirely. (Breaks into tears)
 |
| Mr. & Mrs. Lawal with their Prophetic Kids, Goodness & Mercy |
explain. This miracle is just beyond me
I think so.
now?
crying) I will invest. I will invest.
Saheed.
 |
| Mr & Mrs. Lawal signs their new Land Document before the Press |
food money to play lotto—Wife
badly when your husband spent his last penny to stake that night?
played that N500 game, it was in the evening. In fact, he was already
asleep and he just woke up and said ‘Let
me quickly play a game’ and I was furious. I said ‘So, you have started again? You want to play game again, abi? So, all
the monies we supposed to feed with, you keep spending on game?’ and he
replied saying ‘Please, I just want to
try this one’. That I should just let him try and I said ‘ok, mo ti gbo’. Immediately he staked,
I mean when he played the game, he suddenly shouted ‘Ha, I have run into debt o—Mo ti je gbese!’. I said ‘which kind of debt?’ and he replied ‘I wanted to stake N200 but I have ended up
losing my N500 on it’. And I replied, I said ‘It is God that catch you, in fact it is my head that equally catch you
as well. If not, why would you be staking for N200, N500, is that not too much, you are too fond of playing lotto’.
But I was shocked last week when I got a call from Golden Chance that ‘Madam, Please, we need so-so ticket from
so-so person’. That day was a Friday. He travelled down to Ibadan for a work and I must confess,
there was nothing to eat at home. In fact, it was from his younger brother that
I collected money to make food for my children that evening. I was cooking the
food when the call came in. Meanwhile, all that time, his phone was switched
off and we couldn’t reach him. His number was switched off for two days. So,
immediately they called me from Golden Chance, they asked me about a
particular ticket my husband staked, I said ‘yes,
I know the ticket’. I said ‘ticket
number 24?’ They said ‘yes’. I said I know the ticket but I cannot say
the certain place he kept it. And they said ‘Please,
look for it o, make sure you search
for it’. I will like to use this opportunity to specially thank Golden
Chance
Lotto because they really, really tried for us.
 |
| Mrs. Peju Akinbiyi, Marketing Manager, Golden Chance Lotto |
They called me almost
15 times that day, they kept calling me that I should try and find the ticket.
They said ‘Madam, please, look for that
ticket’. At a time, I even became angry because honestly, I am not part to
things like that, and I said to them ‘look,
I have searched the entire house,
even where we pour our dustbin’, I went out and started searching the dustbin to see
if I can get the ticket there but all the same I could not. They said ‘ok, call your husband’ and I told them
that his number wasn’t going. They said ‘what of the person they went together
to work?’, I said ‘I don’t even know his
phone number as well’ and they asked
again ‘which part of Nigeria did he travel to?’ and I said ‘Ibadan but I wouldn’t know which part of the city’. I don’t even
know the area and they said to me again ‘Madam,
see, your husband won a jackpot, please, make sure you look for him, go out and
search for him. Ask people if they could find his whereabouts’ and I
replied ‘See, nobody knows his whereabouts.
If he is traveling, he does not expose his movements’. And the Golden
Chance people responded again ‘Madam,
just find a means to find him for us’. So, they kept calling me
consistently on this particular day. To make matter worse, I had not even taken
lunch, I only ate in the morning. So, I was really famished and angry. I was
just preparing meal for my kids when the whole drama started and I was really,
really weak. But I made sure I went to my husband’s younger brother’s shop to
search for the ticket. I equally scattered the dustbin, looking for the ticket
if by chance we have mistakenly swept it off. People asked me why I was
romancing the dustbin and I said ‘I am
looking for something’. I scattered the dustbin, looking for the ticket but
I couldn’t find it. So, I became confused yet the call kept coming from Golden
Chance that ‘Madam, please now,
we specifically came because of you from Lagos, why are you behaving like
this?’
 |
| Mr. Femi Akioye of Channel Drill Resources takes the first step for the Lawals |
 |
| L-R: Mr. Femi Akioye, MD/CEO, Channel Drill Resources Ltd with a Kedari Capital Executive showing the couple how to do it |
then?
 |
| An Executive of Kedari Capital shows Mr. & Mrs. Lawal how to redeem their new title |
wasn’t. I was not aware. So, I told them frankly, ‘see, I am tired. All these things you are saying to me are getting
tedious for me’ and one of them said to me ‘Madam, it seems you don’t know what is actually happening. That if you
know what is at stake, you will quickly get into a bus tonight and travel to
Ibadan to go and look for your husband’. So, I said ‘please, I am tired and I am confused’. But later the Golden
Chance people said I should give them the number of anybody in Ibadan
who is close to him so that they can call such a person and get through to him.
I said ok, let me give them the number of my husband’s cousin in Ibadan. The son of his mother’s senior
sister, I have his phone contact and I said maybe if that one can reach him.
 |
| The GDA & a Guest at the Event |
So, I sent that number to Golden Chance but unfortunately, it
didn’t go as well. All that time I was equally trying his phone number and it
wasn’t going. The messages we sent to his cousin’s phone number was pending. I
exhausted all the money on my phone and I became exhausted myself. So, I took
my bag and was returning home around 7pm in the evening. As I was about
reaching home, my phone beeped and I looked and saw that the message I sent to
my husband just went through and it read ‘successful’ which means he has
received my message. Unconsciously I started shouting ‘’O ti lo, o ti lo, o ti lo”
to the hearing of everybody on the road. So, everyone going on the road, I
started approaching them one-by-one since I didn’t have credit on my phone to
call. I will say ‘Mummy, please, kindly
give me your phone to call’. And the last woman I approached said ‘Look, I don’t have credit too o’. As she
was saying that, my husband’s call just came in, it was like a great relief. He
was trying to greet and apologize for his late call, I said ‘don’t bother, please, can you tell me where
you kept so-so number you played the other day with your last cash’. He
said ‘Ha, it is inside one particular
bag. Did I win?’ and I said ‘I don’t
know o but as they are saying it now, it is like you won’.
So, he directed me to the bag where he kept the ticket. He promised to reach Ijebu that night. I reached for the bag
and opened the inner zip. Meanwhile I have searched the bag earlier without
finding the ticket but this time around, I was able to locate the ticket where
he kept it.
 |
| Guests at the event |
I approached a woman near his brother’s shop, I begged her for N50 to take an Okada (Motor Cycle) back to Golden
Chance office that night and immediately I got to their office and I
showed them the ticket they said ‘Ah, Madam, congratulation. Your
husband won o but we cannot tell you the amount now because it is a voluminous
amount’. I said ‘is the money so
much like that? Please don’t kill me because I am already tired’ so, I sat
down because I have not eaten and I was weak. The staff said ‘Madam, what is wrong with you? You don’t
even know anything, you have become a millionaire, why are you weak, be
strong’. So, they asked about him and I told them that he is on the way and
that the journey might take the entire night and they said well, if he returns
tomorrow morning, I should tell him to show up at the office, that the ticket
will be kept in the office till they sight him. All that time I was confused. I
kept asking myself ‘Millionaire! Ha,
millionaire! Is it possible? Can it be possible?’ but I kept on with one
heart. I must tell you, it is very good to serve God. It is good to be close to
God, that day, I sang back home because I told God in the year 2016 that I want
a big blessing that I will never forget, a blessing that will make people to
join me in giving thanks to Him, that God should do it for my household, I
repeated the prayer in October, that ‘The
little that this year is about to end, God should do that great thing for me’
and I thank God that He listened to my prayers and did it for me. God did it
for me, God turned my shame to fame, and so, I have a story to tell, a big
story, a very big story.
 |
| Mr. & Mrs. Lawal matches forward to redeem their Land Document |
to Millionaire!
in 2009 and ever since, things have been so bad and difficult for us but I
stand on God that He alone will do it and today I thank Him for his kindness. I
work as a teacher in a school at Ijebu-Igbo.
I earn Seven Thousand Naira per month but today, I thank God almighty
for His marvelous kindness upon my family. I give glory to God because this
thing that happened to my family I never thought it could be real. I never
taught it could be real until when they said we are going to Lagos. I said is it possible? Like I
said since I left school, I have been managing this N7000 job because one cannot just sit at home. I am a staff of Tender
Soul Nursery and Primary School but God has changed my story now. He
surprised my house hold in a big way this year. I return all glory to him
 |
| The New Millionaire Family with a Guest admirer at the event |
State. From Ijebu-Iganmiji just along Owu-Ikija road before Ijebu
Ode but my dad have a house in Ibadan.
We met in School that is Abraham Adesanya Polytechnic and
married in year 2009. Our marriage is just seven years.
 |
| Mr. Femi Akioye of Channel Drill Resources, organizers of Imperial City tells the GDA more about the innovation |
Administration while my husband studied Accounting
but since then he has not been able to get a job. So, he paint buildings and we
have been surviving on his little odd jobs combined with my teaching job. We
just survive. That is it.
 |
| Lawal….The New Celebrity faces The Camera |
 |
| The Inter-Switch Executives |
sincere Lotto company?
Chance Lotto because, people are even saying ‘it is mercy you got’
because if it should have been another lotto company, by the time they kept
calling you and you are not responding in time, they would have found another
person to replace you. Golden Chance is a very transparent
lotto firm, they are truthful and transparent. They should continue to be
transparent and I want to enjoin them to keep the flag flying. May God continue
to help Golden Chance Lotto; may God bless them with the strength
and knowledge to keep charting new courses. May their organization continue to
grow from strength to strength and may they never go down and have a bad
history. They are changing lives, may God continue to lift them up. They will
go up, up, up and up because I never expect that I can be in this position,
five years, ten years from now, I never expected it. But today, I thank God, I
thank Golden Chance. I will
recommend Golden Chance to all Nigerians. If you play, you will receive
instant winnings just like my family is receiving ours now.
 |
| The GDA with Mr. Femi Akioye, MD/CEO Channel Drill Resources Ltd |
Lawal Oluwafunmilayo
Mercy Lawal.
Goodness and Mercy?
Well, it is God’s mercy. They are prophetic names we gave them. Of course I am
a Christian and my husband is a Muslim but we share same philosophy when
it comes to faith. The Muslim name
for the elder one (Goodness) is Yusuf while the second born (Mercy)
is Kudirat.
 |
| Guests at the Event |
