We ’ll take drastic actions against bank debtors soon –EFCC - Recovers N171bn, arrests ex-staff, Appeal Court boss’s aide - Says, we have enough evidence against Elumelu

Lanre Adewole, Abuja - 03.11.2009

THE Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Monday, in Abuja, disclosed that the coming weeks would witness drastic actions against debtors of the N1trillion non-performing loans to the troubled banks.

The commission has also recovered N171, 045, 670, 248 (One hundred and seventy one billion, Forty-Five Million, Six Hundred and Seventy Thousand and Two Hundred and Forty Eight Naira) from the debtors for seven banks.

Commission’s spokesperson, Mr. Femi Babafemi, told the Nigerian Tribune in Abuja that the recovery efforts were still on.

“It is an impetus to do more. The chairman (Farida Waziri) met with the sectional heads of the commission to review the successes achieved so far and get them more committed. What that means is that drastic actions are ahead in the coming weeks.”

The breakdown of the recovered loans showed that Intercontinental Bank is having the highest of N59.23billion, while Spring Bank has the lowest of N571, 735,947.21 million.

Others are Bank PHB, N1, 210,600,441.63; Afribank, N33,385,166,949.20, Union Bank, N30, 422,996,448.39; Oceanic Bank, N35, 48 billion; and FinBank N10, 745,170,462.34.

Nigerian Tribune also gathered from a source within the commission that the travel ban placed on the banks’ debtors was still in force, noting that the ban was responsible for the debtors not attempting to travel outside the shores of the country.

The commission has also arrested the son of a Supreme Court Justice and an ex-staff member of the agency, Barrister Obinna Oguwuegbu, over an alleged N10 million scam.

Arrested alongside him was the Special Assistant to the President of Customary Court of Appeal, Mr. Ndubuisi Nnoke.

Babafemi confirmed the arrests, adding that investigation had been concluded and that the suspects would be arraigned soon.

It was gathered that the duo had tried to swindle the leadership of the court to the tune of N10 million using a fictitious petition before the anti-graft agency.

According to an EFCC source, “Nnoke had contacted the Chief Registrar of the court and said that his friend Obinna, a former staff of EFCC, had a piece of information that there was a petition against the top management staff of the court at the commission.

“Nnoke told the CR that Obinna would help them kill the petition if the leadership of the court could drop money, that was on October 25th.

“On the 26th, a meeting was arranged and Obinna came to the court and another meeting was arranged for 27th at Top View hotel at Zone 5, though the court leadership had contacted us.

“So our operatives an ambush for them and they were arrested.”