The Nigerian
Deposit Insurance Corporation has asked a Federal High Court in Lagos to place
on the “undefended list” a suit it filed to recover an alleged debt of N34m
from the Senior Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Doyin
Okupe, and two others.
A plaintiff
usually applies to put a matter on undefended list when he believes the
respondents have no valid defence. Okupe’s co-respondents in the suit filed by
the NDIC before Justice Saliu Saidu are Value Trust Investment Limited and its
Director, Mr. Ray Ahazie. The corporation had instituted the action in 2007 to
recover the alleged debt being the outstanding of a loan facility obtained by
the respondents from Gulf Bank Plc in October 2000.
PUNCH adds
that the corporation, in a statement of claims by its lawyer, Dr. Abiodun
Layonu (SAN), said the respondents obtained the loan from the bank to
facilitate a contract to supply the Bayelsa State Government with 10,000 metric
tons of imported rice. It, however, stated that though the said rice was
successfully imported on December 28, 2000, the ship was unable to berth at the
Apapa Port in Lagos until January 3, 2001 because the port was then congested.
The
corporation stated further that when the ship arrived at Port Harcourt on July
26, 2001, an unpaid agency fee in the sum of $155,000 prevented it from
berthing. According to the NDIC, the said delay in the delivery of the bags of
rice led to some becoming caked and some becoming stained. Read more
Bayelsa
State Government was said to have refused to take delivery of the rice,
following which Gulf Bank was forced to commence an open market sale of the
goods and in the process discovering that a good number of the bags of rice
were spoilt. The bank said that at the end of the sale it was able to recoup only
N454, 574,150 of the loan advanced to the defendants leaving an outstanding sum
of N70,425,850. The outstanding sum was said to have been attracting interest
since 2001.
The matter
was said to have been referred to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
in September 2005 where the sum of N196, 642, 996 of the debt with interest was
waived, leaving only an outstanding of N44m.
The NDIC
however claimed that following the waiver, the defendants were able to pay only
N10m out of the N44m bringing the debt down to N34m. But since then the
defendants were said to have allegedly abandoned the debt or refused to
liquidate it.
NDIC in its
suit before the Federal High Court is seeking to reclaim the indebted sum with
21 per cent interest per annum till it would be finally liquidated.
The
corporation also wants the court to put the cost of instituting the legal
action on the defendants. At the resumed hearing of the case before Justice
Saidu, counsel for the NDIC.
Mr. Oburume
Ayeteno, informed the court that the corporation had filed an application to
place the suit on the undefended list, adding that he was ready to argue same.
In response, however, Okupe’s lawyer, Mr. Yemi Gbonegun, said he had already
filed a statement of defence to the claims.
The document was however not found
in the court’s records following which Gbonegun sought for an adjournment to be
able to re-file it. The court adjourned further proceedings till July 8 .
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