JUSTICE Okon Abang of the Federal High Court in Lagos, on Tuesday, gave an order barring the Zamfara State government from withdrawing funds from its accounts in 21 banks in the country.
The judge ordered all the banks involved to disclose the amount of money which the state had in its accounts with them.
He ordered the 21 banks to appear before him on November 6, to give reasons, if they have any, why such funds should not be withdrawn to defray a debt of N3.1billion with interest, which Zamfara State owed Ecobank Nigeria Limited.
Abang had, on September 30, entered judgment in favour of Ecobank in a N3.1 billion debt recovery suit the bank filed against Zamfara State government and six others.
The judge had granted the bank’s claim of N3.1billion with 30 per cent interest from March 1, 2013 till judgment day and 10 per cent thereafter, until the final liquidation of the debt.
In the said judgment, Abang said the papers before him showed that Zamfara State obtained a credit facility in sum of N1.5 billion in 2009 from the defunct Ocean Bank Plc, which was later acquired by Ecobank.
The judge said Zamfara State neither denied being indebted to the bank nor proved that it had liquidated the loan, which it obtained to execute a water project.
He then ordered the Accountant-General of the Federation to ensure that the judgment sum, with interest, was deducted from funds accruable to Zamfara State in the Federation Account and be paid into Ecobank until the debt was fully liquidated.
But both Zamfara State and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) went on an appeal and subsequently urged Abang to stay execution of the judgment pending the determination of the appeals.
In a ruling on Tuesday, however, Abang dismissed both applications and asked Ecobank to proceed with the process of recovering the debt from Zamfara State.
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