A Lagos-based businessman, Chief Anthony Obidulu, has accused one of the new-generation banks of deceiving the court with false information on a loan owed it, to claim ownership of the company.
Consequently, the company, according to him, had been sealed for seven years, following a procurement of a court order by the bank to take over it.
Briefing journalists, in Okota, Obidu who is the Chief Executive Officer of the company, lamented that the action crippled the company and rendered 300 direct employees and more than 2,800 persons in its distribution chain jobless..
Appealing to the Federal Government to intervene to checkmate what he described as alleged crookedness with which some commercial banks in Nigeria had adopted to manipulate accounting books relating to loans, he revealed that “ our company is a victim of such crookedness and we would want Nigerians to beware of such obnoxious tendencies of the banks.”
Explaining the company’s travail, he said, ”Our company is one of the beneficiaries of the Federal Government’s intervention loans tagged Small and Medium Enterprises Credit Guarantee Scheme SMECGS in 2011. We got N100 million of the intervention fund through the bank (names withheld) because one of the conditions for getting the fund was that one must go through a commercial bank to access it. So we opened an account with the bank, from where the fund was accessed.
”The N100 million was guaranteed by the Federal Government of Nigeria to the tune of 80% (Principal and interest) and tenure of 60 months with 12 months moratorium. Final date of repayment ought to be November, 2016 in respect of which the Central Bank of Nigeria issued a Guarantee Certificate to the bank, dated March, 15, 2012, containing the afore-mentioned terms which the bank concealed from the Federal High Court in securing the judgment they are peddling around.
“But the bank cooked up some fictitious figures and alleged that we owed about N350 million. They went to court behind us, procured an order to take over the company and eventually sealed the company. As at the time they went to court, we had only touched the Federal Government’s money, not the bank’s money. The offer letter that has not been drawn down is what they relied on to convince the court that our company owed them.
“The judge did not look at the drawdown but the offer letter, and he gave the judgment without telling them how much money they can recover from Algrain Foods Limited, thereby giving them an open ticket that has led to the looting that took place in the factory, as moveable assets worth over N20,000,000,000:00K (Twenty Billion Naira) have been stolen from the factory with the aid of Mobile Policemen illegally procured from Mopol 20, Ikeja, Lagos”.
Continuing, he said, “They had no right in the first place to enforce the loan which was not even due for repayment as at the time they appointed the Receiver/Manager because it has a tenure of 60 months, with 24 months moratorium, final payment was to be due in November, 2016 (5th year anniversary of the facility). In fact the SMECGS guidelines issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria talks of eight years tenure; it was an intervention fund for Small and medium enterprises engaged in the Agriculture value chain. We did not take any loan from the said bank because there was no draw down on their own N205,000,000:00 (Two Hundred and Five Million Naira) neither was any such money utilized by our company. If they claim otherwise, let the bank show any application to prove that Algrain Foods Limited utilised this sum.
”Having played a fast one on our company (due to my absence from the country, as I was overseas attending a conference) the bank has now taken over the company, we did not know what to do and where to start”.
He disclosed that in the company’s desperation , it offered to pay the bank N150 million for it to be opened temporarily but that the bank refused.
He said the company employed the services of a team of lawyers, accountants, auditors and ex-bankers who painstakingly looked into the accounts and discovered that the company was not owing the commercial bank.
He further stated that when it became apparent that the company was fighting back, the bank involved one of the new generation banks which the company had a business dealing with in the past, to join forces to fight it.
The two banks, according to him, collaborated to put pressure on him, and insisted that the company owed the said amount.
When journalists visited the company, it was still sealed. The working tools were discovered to be absent. There were also policemen in front of the sealed company.