Florence Ozor, FCCPC, and the Range Rover: Why Coscharis Motors Must Be Held Accountable -By Jeff Okoroafor

The ruling handed down this week by Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja is the judicial equivalent of a final warning shot. His lordship ordered the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) to enforce its own sanctions against Coscharis Motors—up to and including shutting down the company’s business premises. The case revolved around a 2024 Range Rover Sport sold to Florence Ozor, a vehicle that began manifesting persistent defects—including a faulty right taillight—barely six months after purchase.

In a functioning market, a premium price tag is supposed to guarantee premium quality. Yet what Florence Ozor encountered was a parade of excuses, a sham mediation, and ultimately, a dealership that treated a regulatory order as a mere suggestion. After an FCCPC investigation found Coscharis liable for supplying defective goods, the commission crafted a clear remedy: deliver a new 2024 model at no extra cost for a two-month trial, or offer a 2025 model if the customer agreed to pay the difference. Fourteen business days came and went. Nothing.

This is not an isolated incident. It is not a one-off customer service failure. It is the modus operandi of a company that has, for over a decade, worn regulatory contempt as a badge of honour. The evidence is damning, and it is extensive.

A Litany of Broken Promises and Broken Cars

Coscharis Motors has built an empire on the backs of Nigeria’s aspirational class, selling dreams of luxury and reliability. For far too many customers, those dreams have curdled into a waking nightmare of courtrooms, police stations, and endless trips to mechanic shops.

Consider the ordeal of Irene Ottih, a publisher who purchased a brand-new Land Rover Freelander for N9 million in 2009. The car “immediately developed fault after it was purchased,” which Coscharis attributed to the fuel pump. The right handle of the back seat was also defective. What followed was a riptide of broken assurances. The car repeatedly stopped on the road, required multiple tows, and drained batteries with such regularity that the company itself took over the task of replacing them. “I returned the car sometime in 2011 and it stayed with Coscharis Motors for almost one year,” Ottih recounted. By the time she spoke to the press in 2021—eleven years after her purchase—the matter remained unresolved. Under Land Rover’s own warranty policy, a customer in this situation should have received a substitute vehicle. She received nothing but a car that, as of the report, was still languishing at the company’s Lagos facility.

Or consider the case of Olusina Sofola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), who bought a Jaguar XJ 2.0 Sedan for N24 million in December 2016. Within days, the bonnet would not close properly. Then the dashboard and interior panels began peeling, becoming “very sticky to touch.” When a pebble cracked the windscreen, Coscharis charged him over N1 million for a replacement—and then botched the installation so badly that water leaked into the cabin every time it rained. An attempt to hide the interior damage was even more galling: someone at Coscharis had painted over the peeling panels to make them “appear new.” In 2019, a Lagos magistrate court ordered Coscharis to replace the vehicle and pay N1 million in damages. The company appealed. And appealed again. As of 2021, Sofola was still waiting.

Then there is Jason Njoku, founder of iROKOtv, who watched his Range Rover Sport develop a critical technical fault just five months after purchase. His summary of the Coscharis experience was as succinct as it was brutal: “5 months after accident. Coscharis is still giving excuses. Never again.”

These are not stories of customer negligence. These are stories of customers with the financial means and social capital to fight back—SANs, media executives, entrepreneurs—and even they were worn down by a corporate machine designed to deflect, delay, and deny.

The Man at the Top

An institution’s culture is shaped by its leadership. Coscharis Group was founded and is chaired by Dr. Cosmas Maduka, a figure celebrated in Nigerian business circles—even serving as a director at Access Bank Plc. The company’s promotional materials speak loftily of “timeless relevance” and a “Brand promise” built on state-of-the-art aftersales facilities.

But a leader’s legacy is defined not by the promises they make, but by the consequences they enforce when those promises are broken. Under Maduka’s watch, Coscharis has been embroiled in scandals that go beyond defective consumer goods.

In 2013, the company was at the centre of the infamous Stella Oduah bulletproof car scandal. Coscharis was accused of selling two armoured BMWs to the then-Aviation Minister at a grossly inflated price of N255 million, in a transaction that was found to have violated Nigeria’s customs and security regulations. When the scandal broke, lawmakers expressed outrage at the “deceitful scheming by the car supplier which swindled Nigerians of millions.” Cosmas Maduka himself was subsequently quizzed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Years later, an Ekiti State panel investigated a vehicle supply contract and found that a “claim by Coscharis Motors that it supplied 235 and/or 250 vehicles was fraudulent and was fraught with so many contradictions.” The panel discovered that some vehicles were supposedly delivered to an Ekiti State Government liaison office in Ibadan—an office that did not exist.

And in a separate criminal trial involving a federal judge, a bank official testified to transferring N8 million to Coscharis Motors for a BMW 320i allegedly delivered to the judge’s son as gratification.

This is the corporate DNA. This is the ecosystem of impunity that Dr. Cosmas Maduka has presided over. When a company’s leadership is comfortable cutting corners in multimillion-dollar government contracts and facilitating questionable judicial transactions, why would it suddenly develop a conscience when dealing with an individual customer who bought a defective car?

The Pathology of Impunity

The Florence Ozor case exposes the precise mechanics of how Coscharis evades accountability. When the FCCPC ordered a remedy, the company did not comply. Instead, it went behind the complainant’s back to lobby the regulator for a softer deal, triggering fresh rounds of meetings and the same settlement proposals the customer had already rejected.

This is a deliberate strategy: exhaust the complainant, exploit institutional lethargy, and wait out the clock. It worked against Irene Ottih for over a decade. It worked against Olusina Sofola, who had to chase Coscharis through magistrate courts, high courts, and appellate courts. It is working now against Florence Ozor.

The FCCPC, for its part, has not covered itself in glory. The court had to issue an order of mandamus – a judicial command – to compel the agency to simply do its job. Justice Nwite’s declaration that “the Respondent, as a government agency is bound by its orders as much as the parties involved are bound by same” is a gentle way of saying: the regulator itself needs regulating.

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act, 2018, is not a toothless document. Section 150(4) grants the FCCPC the power to seal business premises, impose administrative sanctions, and take all necessary steps to enforce compliance. The problem is not the law. The problem is the will to use it.

What Must Happen Now

The Federal High Court has drawn a line in the sand. The FCCPC must now act – not merely against Coscharis Motors, but against a broader culture of corporate impunity that treats Nigerian consumers as captive victims rather than rights-bearing citizens.

First, the commission should immediately enforce the court’s order. If that means shutting down Coscharis showrooms until Florence Ozor receives her replacement vehicle, so be it. The spectacle of a prominent dealership being padlocked will send a message that no corporate boardroom can ignore.

Second, the FCCPC should launch a systemic investigation into Coscharis Motors’ complaint history. The cases documented here – Ozor, Sofola, Ottih, Njoku – cannot be the sum total of grievances against a dealership that has operated for nearly five decades. There are likely hundreds of consumers who could not afford lawyers or who simply gave up. Their voices must be aggregated and their losses quantified.

Third, the Nigerian Bar Association and civil society organisations must take note. When a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, an officer of the highest court in the land, cannot get justice without a multi-year legal battle, what hope does an ordinary citizen have? Access to justice in consumer protection matters must be radically simplified.

Finally, the public must play its role. Consumers should vote with their wallets. A dealership that systematically defrauds its customers does not deserve their patronage, no matter how shiny its showrooms or prestigious its brand partnerships. Jason Njoku’s three-word epitaph for his Coscharis relationship – “Never again” – should become a consumer rallying cry.

Conclusion

Coscharis Motors has had every opportunity to reform. It has been sued, investigated, fined, and ordered to comply by multiple courts. Each time, it has responded with the same playbook: deny, delay, appeal, and when all else fails, quietly lobby the regulator.

That playbook must now be torn up. Justice Nwite’s ruling is unambiguous. The FCCPC’s duty is clear. Florence Ozor’s replacement vehicle is over a year overdue. The keys should be in her hands. Until they are, every day of inaction is a fresh indictment of Nigeria’s consumer protection regime and a fresh insult to every Nigerian who has ever saved, borrowed, and sacrificed to buy what they were promised would be a brand-new car—only to be handed a defect waiting to happen.

The time for excuses is over. Shut them down, now.

Jeff Okoroafor is a social accountability advocate and a political commentator focused on governance, accountability, and social justice in West Africa.