₦airaland Forum

It seems that none of you on this forum has bothered to check the facts. Here is the reply from BIU, taken from their website:

Benson Idahosa University Not Under Receivership

In response to the article in This Day newspaper on December 6th, 2009, the authorities of Benson Idahosa University, a highly ranked private university based in Benin City, Edo State, have said that the University is not under receivership of any bank.

According to the university’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Gideon Omuta, there was no time the University was indebted to Access Bank of Nigeria for N200 million, as was being speculated by This Day newspapers.

He said that the university was aware of the publication, which unfortunately was not balanced, as his institution was at no time contacted for its side of the story. He stressed that it was the parent organization of the University (the ABAIF), that had had a long standing relationship with Access bank. Unfortunately, previously unblemished relationship was strained earlier this year as a result of discrepancies in figures produced by the bank.

Professor Omuta added that when the Foundation was taken to court, it was not present to defend itself before an initial court order was given for the taking over of another arm of the foundation which was a sister school and an affiliate of Benson Idahosa University. He said this must have been the source of the misinformation that was printed by the newspaper, and unfortunately, was not checked for correctness before it was printed. When the initial order was given on August 9th 2009, and the Foundation immediately returned to court seeking redress. On October 13th 2009, after the court was approached on the matter and provided with information, the court vacated its initial order given to the bank, with costs amounting to N50,000 to be paid to the Foundation by the bank for presenting wrong information and suppression of facts, on which the initial order was given.

He noted that since then, the strain in the relationship between the Foundation and the Bank had been straightened out and that the initial loan had long been repaid.

He said the Foundation was a socially responsible legal entity that would never renege in its obligations to the bank; however, discrepancies in figures presented by its banker led to its asking for the concerned account to be straightened by Access Bank in order to fulfill its financial obligations.