Banks go after debtor-lawmakers as 8th Assembly rounds up

BANKS are scrambling to recover huge loans from lawmakers before the 8th Assembly rounds up in June.

Investigations showed that in 2015, at the beginning of the 8th Assembly, many banks had offered lawmakers generous personal loans to purchase houses and other types of property.

It was learnt that the loans were between N150 to N200 million and were offered to members of both chambers in a marketing frenzy.

Now, the banks are chasing items listed as collateral in the agreement forms signed by lawmakers in a bid to recover their funds.

A bank source, who pleaded anonymity, said the loans given run into billions of Naira.

The Nation learnt that the issue of loans recovery had in the past gotten messy with the banks approaching the National Assembly management to help recover such funds through severance allowances, quarterly allowances and other entitlements of members.

Investigations revealed that quite a number of banks had petitioned the House of Representatives Speaker on the indebtedness of members of the House to their establishments, with some of these complaints presently being investigated by the House Committee on Ethics and Privileges.

One of such is the issue between Access Bank and GT Bank and a member from the North in the 8th Assembly, who took a loan of N120 million from both banks since 2015 and cumulatively has N88 million outstanding. The case is still ongoing.

This is coming against the growing concern of the huge non-performing loans in banks.

In its 2017 Annual Report and statement of accounts, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) revealed that Nigerian banks’ Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) in 2017 was N2.36 trillion, an increase of 13.46 per cent over 2016 figures of N2.08 trillion.

Similarly, as at October 2018, a list of 105 top debtors published by Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) gave the figure of N409,502,652.84 as being owed by prominent Nigerians in the society.

The names given by AMCON included some serving senators like Senator  Buruji Kashamu, who allegedly owes AMCON N13.015 billion and Usman Bayero Nafada, a former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives in the 6th Assembly.

Others include former Plateau State Governor and serving Senator Joshua Dariye, who allegedly indebted to the tune of N6.823 billion.

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Similarly, a former Enugu State Governor and a serving senator representing Enugu East date, Chimaroke Nnamani, is allegedly indebted to the tune of N42.49 billion to AMCON through Iorna Global Resources, Camden Resources Limited, Riverside Logistics Limited, Sammy Beth Interbiz Limited and Rainbownet Limited.

Former Minister of Aviation Senator Stella Oduah allegedly owed N20 billion and Senator Ben Murray was also included in the AMCON debtor list for allegedly owing N10 billion.

However, the National Assembly management has said it would not get involved in any debt recovery on behalf of any bank this time around.

In the 7th Assembly, the banks had approached the National Assembly management to help recover the huge debt.

Speaking on the issue, the spokesman of the National Assembly, Rawlins Agada, said the management or the National Assembly would not be involved in the issue of debt recovery.

According to him, such agreements are private and did not need the intervention of the management.

He said some members of the National Assembly “use their company names and their positions”.

“I tell banks not to go on the business of weird search of customers.

“It is also an opportunity for them to learn. They must be diligent, ask what and what are you giving out as collateral. You need to ask what the hidden charges are. If you don’t pay the loan back, it is a breach of contract and the law is that if you breach a contractual agreement, the bank has the right to go and recover its money, recover what is equivalent in cash.

“I know that if there are issues in respect of that, the bank would have determined what should be their collateral or whoever will be their guarantor to access such loans. I think you have some insights on what happened the last time.

“I can assure you that those that have issues with the bank, it is a private transaction and that does not require the management’s position.”

The Nation learnt that those worse hit by the loans recovery drive of the banks are lawmakers, who were unable to secure tickets to contest the 2019 elections.