By Ishaya Ibrahim
June 7 was stormy at the head office of Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB). Officials were in a jumpy mode, unable to figure out how to contain the doom’s day story on the social media that Innoson Motors was to be credited with N14 billion from the coffers of GTB within 14 days.
For GTB shareholders, this is no good story for a bank that has just declared N45 billion profit in first quarter 2018. So, giving Innoson Motors N14 billion or 31 percent of that sum would be bad business for them.
The N14 billion cannot also be debited from depositors’ money because it does not belong to the bank.
GTB had a N2.214 trillion of customers deposit in first quarter, majority of which was also given to other customers as loans and advances. So, there is no N14 billion waiting for Innoson Motors in GTB’s vault.
What then is the correct rendering of the Supreme Court Judgment? The legal battle actually started in 2012 when Innocent Chukwuma, chairman of Innoson Motors raised the alarm that GTB debited his current account with over N700 million excess and unlawful charges.
Innoson went to court and obtained a judgment from the Federal High Court asking GTB to pay him N4.7Billion, and that the money should be running on 22 percent interest until the payment is made.
GTB approached the Appeal Court to set aside the lower court’s judgment. But the Appeal court judges insisted that while the case is ongoing, GTB should pay the judgment debt to the Registrar of the court for safe keeping so that at the end of the legal tussle, the registrar would hand over the money to the winner of the case. At this point, the money had already increased to N6 billion by virtue of the 22 percent interest.
GTB then approached the Supreme Court, asking it to declare that the Appeal Court was wrong in its decision that they deposit N6 billion with the Court Registrar. But the Supreme court said the Appeal Court decision was valid. By this time, the N6 billion had ballooned to N14 billion based on the 22 percent interest calculation.
By this decision of the Supreme Court, Innoson Motors went to town with the news that the court had asked GTB to pay Innoson Motors N14billion.
Head, Corporate Communications for Innoson Motors, Cornel Osigwe, argued in a press statement on June 13, that they were right to interpret the judgment that way since it was ‘judgment debt.’
GTB insisted that there was no directive or Order issued by the Supreme Court of Nigeria to the Bank to make any payment to any of its debtor customers. But it however failed to clarify that the court asked it to deposit N14 billion to the court.
Innoson Motors was also wrong to have interpreted the Supreme Court Judgment to mean an order for GTB to pay him N14 billion.
The substantive case at the appellate court has not been decided. And it is the winner of that case that would clinch the N14 billion. If GTB wins, they would only recover their N14 billion.
But if Innoson wins, the N14 billion goes to him or converted as for him as shareholding, thereby placing him far higher than the biggest shareholder of the bank, Segun Agbaje, whose worth of shareholding currently stands at less than N2 billion.