Liquidated Heritage Bank Customers Send SOS To President Tinubu

Customers of now liquidated Heritage Bank, have send Save Our Soul (SOS) message to President Bola Tinubu over the inability of the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Company (NDIC) to refund them their money trapped in the bank after it was liquidated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The Heritage Bank customers under the umbrella; Depositors of Liquidated Heritage Bank, N5m and Above Customers, in a press conference in Aba, the commercial nerve of Abia State decried that the inability of their members to have access to their funds since their bank was liquidated has not only affected their businesses negatively, but has led to the death of some their members.

According to them, while some of their members have been forced to sell off their properties to service the debt that they were owing some other commercial banks, others find it difficult to feed their families and to even pay their children’s school fees, which has led to the withdrawal of their kids from schools; nursery, primary, secondary and tertiary institutions respectively.

They also claim that some of their members who are bedridden now find it hard to continue with their medications and other treatments, which they said worsened their health conditions.

The liquidated bank customers who claimed that they had attempted to close their accounts in Heritage Bank when it was rumoured that the bank was struggling financially, said that they were deceived in keeping their funds with the bank after the Central Bank of Nigeria in a release signed by Ag. Director, Corporate Communications, Isaac Okoroafor, dismissing the report of Heritage Bank being in any financial distress and went ahead to urge depositors to go about their transactions without fear.

The leader of the group, Offor Okorie said, that the customers of the commercial bank were surprised when on June 3, the same CBN came out to announce the revocation of Heritage Bank’s license and subsequent closure of the bank, an act Offor said has left many of the bank’s customers in a state of financial distress, with their livelihood and business hanging in the balance.

“We relied on the signals and assurances from the CBN from time to time (including Monetary Policy Committee meeting communiques) on the health and stability of deposit money banks in Nigeria, including Heritage Bank.

“However, CBN’s failure to remedy the alleged mismanagement of Heritage Bank in a timely manner led to this devastating outcome; closure of the bank and adoption of the curious option of liquidation that implies depositors funds.

“Based on the reports of the CBN and NDIC, routine audits, investigations and examinations in the past few years (as revealed by the CBN statement of June, 3 2024, announcing the closure of Heritage Bank), the licence of Heritage Bank should have been revoked about seven years ago and appropriate remedial actions aimed at protecting depositors and even staff taken.

” But sue to systemic corruption and other shades of weaknesses, the appropriate proactive actions available to CBN and NDIC were not taken timely.

“The painful consequence of the failure, inefficiency and negligence of CBN and NDIC is now visited on poor and hapless Heritage Bank depositors.”

They however, begged President Tinubu to wade into the situation by directing the CBN to settle all depositors in full from the Heritage Bank’s cash reserve ratio held with the CBN and to also direct the CBN to apply other available bank failure resolution options in the Heritage Bank crisis as it was recently done in the case of both Unity and Providus Banks respectively.

The depositors who urged the President to verify the claims by NDIC that they paid the insured sum of over 82% of depositors, begged President Tinubu to ensure that all depositors of Heritage Bank equally.

The group, who also called on federal lawmakers; House of Reps and Senators of the national assembly to come to the aid of their members, feared that their conditions may worsen if President Tinubu and national assembly lawmakers fail to come to their aid.