Like Erisco Foods, Like PWAN Real Estate: Why Do Organisations Keep Choosing Police Over PR?

PWAN Real Estate Company!

If I have to receive a thousand naira for every time I have heard this chant on social media, I could easily retire to a life of comfort at my age. Unless you’ve been offline for a while or somehow impervious to the social media space, you would have come across this chant either from Scott Iguma, the man at the centre of this opinion piece, or influencers like VeryDarkMan (VDM).

Iguma, a digital content creator and whistleblower who, through persistent posts and live sessions, has been calling out PWAN Group, accusing them of selling land receipts instead of actual land, defrauding clients, and failing to allocate lands after payment. He claims to have personally submitted over 130 petitions to the EFCC, backed by acknowledgment slips, and has vowed to continue until justice is served. “PWAN Real Estate company that is selling receipts to people instead of land,” he had said in one of the videos. “We now have a total of 130 petitions… the world is watching.”

However, late last week, Scott Iguma was arrested. By Thursday, he had been remanded in prison by a Lagos State court, facing a 10-count charge of criminal defamation and publication of false information. For a case that should never have involved the Police, this arrest lit a fire across social platforms. As at the time of writing, he remains in detention.

What Was PWAN Thinking?

Across quarters, PR experts agree that PWAN walked into a spectacular public relations catastrophe with eyes wide opened. But the big question is, why? The company, through its Acting Managing Director, Professor Julius Oyedemi, claimed during a weekend interview on Arise News that it had no direct hand in the arrest. But when pressed, he admitted the company had written to the Police after Iguma declared on social media that “if anything happens to me, PWAN should be held responsible.” According to him, the company acted to “protect itself.”

But what exactly was the threat here? That someone had accused the company of unethical practices? That he submitted petitions to the EFCC? That he warned of harm and pointed the finger at the most visible party in his fight?

That interview on Arise News did more harm than good for the brand. Watching it, I could tell that even if Oyedemi had set out to give clarity, the attempt backfired spectacularly. Faced by three of Arise’ journalists who questioned him with depth and insight, in my opinion, he fumbled, grew visibly agitated, and in the aftermath, one of the anchors alleged that he attempted to intimidate her outside the studio. For a brand already in a reputational ditch, this is a clear case of adding fuel to an expanding inferno.

Why would a brand choose Police action over a result oriented PR Strategy? This situation echoes another PR disaster that happened in the not-so-distant past, the Erisco Foods saga, which I wrote about in my commentary, “Battling Mosquitoes with Bullets”. In that case, a Facebook user, Chioma Egodi, had posted that the Erisco brand of tomato mix she bought tasted sugary. Rather than address the concern through consumer relations, the company got her arrested, transferred her to Abuja, and released fiery press statements that triggered even more backlash.

In both Erisco and PWAN’s cases, the pattern is the same. Both corporate entities substituted the opportunity for engagement for enforcement, choosing legal tools over strategic communication, and alienating their core audience by treating criticism as crime. But unlike tomato paste, where curiosity may drive some to taste and verify, real estate doesn’t work that way. It thrives on trust, integrity, and perception. The moment these are questioned and worse, when the response is to jail your accuser, the brand damage becomes systemic.

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A Real Estate Receipt Company?

There’s a saying in brand reputation management: “A moment of poor response can undo a decade of goodwill.” For PWAN Group, a company that’s reportedly been in the Nigerian real estate market since 2012, the fallout from the Scott Iguma arrest might have set it back by at least half that number in reputation terms.

PWAN has now found itself at the centre of a massive wave of publicity; publicity that would ordinarily cost billions of naira, but one they are getting for free. Now widely known online as “the real estate company that sells receipts”, this is the kind of viral branding that is damning. Indeed, people may forget marketing messages, but they rarely forget something like this. This is a company that will now spend far more money trying to recover perception than they would have if they simply chose to engage.

The sad irony here is that the opportunity to address these issues through PR was always there. But ego and a poor understanding of brand communication got in the way.

Recall when Iguma had raised similar allegations against another real estate company, Sujimoto, the MD of that company did not write the Police. He didn’t call for arrest. Instead, he invited Iguma to engage. He responded with facts. He defended his company’s record with documents and transparency. The result? Iguma publicly apologized and became an advocate of the brand. That is PR in motion. That is what reputation management looks like in a social media age.

Sadly, PWAN chose a different route. They claim they called a meeting, that Iguma did not attend, and that his lawyers showed up instead. Still, that was no justification to proceed with a Police complaint, because now, they’ve made him a martyr.

My perspective

From where I stand, the most damning action PWAN took was to escalate this issue into a legal saga when it should have been treated as a PR opportunity. If Iguma’s claims were false or misleading, they could have called a press conference, invited subscribers, showed verifiable data, and let the public draw conclusions.

But, now, the brand damage has been done and PWAN is now in the court of public opinion. And in this court, defamation laws don’t hold water. Engagement does.

What could have been done instead? First, the company should have opened its books and responded with data. Real estate is a document-heavy sector. If they had proof of allocation, customer satisfaction metrics, and transparent refund records, those should have been publicly shared. They could also have invited Scott to the site, shown him around, even allowed the media to witness the tour. Where concerns were valid, they could have issued a public apology, taken corrective actions, and positioned themselves as a company that listens.

Even if they believed he was acting in bad faith, they should have let the EFCC, which he petitioned, handle the matter. Instead, dragging the Police into what is essentially a PR problem has made them look like bullies.

Finally, they should have understood this simple truth and that is, where public sentiment is currency, the loudest voice doesn’t win, the most empathetic one does.

As of this writing, Scott Iguma remains behind bars. Whether or not the allegations are true, one thing is undeniable, PWAN has lost the narrative. Indeed, the public will not remember who was right or wrong in legal terms. What they will remember is that this is the real estate company that arrested a young man for speaking up. And that perception may cost them more than any lawsuit ever could.