The lower chamber of Nigeria’s bicameral National Assembly made this threat amidst Heritage Bank’s ineptitude to pay the federal government what it was owing.

According to the Reps’ ad hoc committee on the assessment and status of all recovered loots (movable and Immovable assets) from 2002 to 2020 by agencies of the Federal Government for effective efficient management and utilisation, Heritage Bank’s about $32 million debt to the federal government, which is more than its entire share capital.

Issuing the threat, the Chairman of the committee, Adejoro Adeogun, at an investigative hearing in Abuja, maintained that the financial institution cannot be owing more than its share capital.

His words: “If Heritage Bank is owing Nigeria more than its share capital, we will not hesitate to ask the National Assembly to write to CBN to take over Heritage Bank.

“They cannot be owing more than their share capital, sit on it and feel too big to respond to invitations from the National Assembly. Clark, you have to write them, give them till Wednesday next week. That is the last time we are going to give them.”

While the takeover of Heritage Bank might not lead to loss of jobs and customers’ deposits, Unmask NG highlights below how the financial institution came into being:

IEI Investments Ltd acquired Societe Generale Bank of Nigeria (SGBN), which was licensed by the CBN after meeting all its requirements. This acquisition happened after the bank failed to meet the apex bank’s new capital requirements of N25 billion or $155 million for a national bank.

IEI Investments’ acquisition led to the birth of Heritage Bank, which later returned100% of existing SGBN account holders’ money which was frozen at the bank’s closure by CBN.

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The other financial institutions are –Zenith, Fidelity, FCMB, UBA, and Heritage banks.

While disclosing this during a recently-held interview, Festus Keyamo, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, said beneficiaries of the programme will only be paid only through their bank accounts using their Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) to avoid fraud and double payment.

Keyamo further revealed that the enlisted banks have successfully opened special accounts and captured the biometrics of successful applicants for the job.

“The clear directive of Mr. President to me was that to ensure a fraud-free process, we should ensure that there is a clear audit trail of all payments made to all beneficiaries and as such, we needed to engage selected banks who can share data with us and we needed to open special accountants for all participants in such a way that there will be an audit trail of all payments made through these selected banks,” he explained.

What you should know

The programme was established under the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) by SWP, to identify and exploit employment opportunities that abound in the public works sector by organizing the skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled persons that are unemployed to carry out utility, environmental, infrastructural development and sanitation works.

Under the programme, artisans (beneficiaries), will do public works for three months for N20,000 per month.

The 774,000 jobs which were scheduled to take off on Sunday, November 1, 2020, after been shifted from Thursday, October 1, 2020, will now kick-off, will now kick-off on Tuesday, January 5, 2020.

Announcing the new date of the programme, Festus Keyamo, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, said: “We have taken a firm decision to begin on January 5, 2021, but I am going to make an official announcement after FEC on Wednesday. We had a few hiccups in December but we have taken a decision to begin January 5 which is a Tuesday.

“The programme will run from January to March 2021 which is a pure dry season. So, we are ready. All the obstacles have been removed.”

But here’s our sentiment…

If the SPW’s 774,000 jobs programme is the best way or option to tackle Nigeria’s alarming unemployment rate, then, the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government’s ineptitude to address the country’s lingering economic challenges has again been brought to fore.

Recall that about 21,764,614 (21.7 million) Nigerians remain unemployed, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

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