Many bank debtors are jittery as the August 1 deadline set by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for them to pay back their loans, or have their names published in the newspapers draws near.
The order, the CBN said, followed the rising trend of non-performing loans (NPL) in the industry.
A debt recovery officer to one of the banks, who spoke anonymously, informed The Nation that there is high level lobbying going on between the debtors and the banks to ensure that their names are not published. The source said that with several banks threatening to make names of such debtors public, the debtors, who are mostly the superrich within the society, have been reaching out to the banks for a truce.
Top commercial lenders, including Stanbic IBTC, Diamond Bank, Sterling Bank, First Bank and Skye Bank, have all given notices to bad debtors to pay up.
A lawyer involved in receivership of bad loans, Chief A.A Aribisala (SAN), said that most of the debtors are untouchable. “Receivership is one of the ways we recover loans. I think the Central Bank of Nigeria and banks are resorting to this approach out of frustration. They want to protect the banks. You know the CBN Governor, came from the banks. He knows what the banks are going through in terms of bad loans. The debtors are simply untouchable. Nigerian bank borrowers are simply untouchable. There are so many of them you cannot touch,” he said.
The lawyer said since most of the debtors are untouchable, the best way is to disgrace them. “Disgrace is enough because when the names are published- that is if they will actually have the liver to publish the real names. You will be surprised the names you will see.
“Those we see as the rich in the society are the ones owing the banks and don’t want to pay back. They are the top newsmakers. They are the ones that owe the banks.
Aribisala said those who want to publish names, know that it is something that those owing will not want to happen. “I only hope the real names will be published, but I doubt it. The debtors cannot clean up. Even if you give them three years, nothing will happen because they don’t have the money to pay,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), yesterday, asked loan defaulters to immediately regularise their accounts or it would publish their names in line with a directive by the apex bank.