The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation has secured a judgment against Jolimair Nigeria Limited and three other debtors that owed the defunct Gulf Bank Plc the sum of N1.4bn.

The corporation, according to a statement on Thursday by the Director, Communications and Public Affairs Department, Dr Sunday Oluyemi, secured the judgement in its capacity as official liquidator of Gulf Bank.

In a debt recovery suit number: FHC/L/CS/1328/17, the NDIC had urged the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos for the recovery jointly and severally from the respondents of the total debt sum of N1.49bn.

The amount was due and payable by Jolimair Nigeria Limited to the Gulf Bank (in-liquidation) as of January 16 2006 when the defunct bank’s operating licence was revoked by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The amount was in respect of the banking facilities granted by the bank in-liquidation and guaranteed by three other respondents in the suit; Joseph Karkar, Abbas Shour and Patrick Uduka.

When the matter came up for judgment on January 31, 2020, the presiding Judge, Honourable Justice Ibrahim Buba, granted the reliefs sought by the NDIC in respect of the N1.4bn debt.

The judge said the respondents failed to tender any documents before the court to prove that their indebtedness to the bank in-liquidation had been settled.

The judge, according to the statement, averred that it was customers like them that were responsible for the failure of the bank.

The court also agreed with the NDIC that the respondents owed interest on the total debt sum calculated from January 16, 2006 at the rate of 21 per cent per annum until the whole debt was fully liquidated.

This is in addition to a cost of N500,000.00 awarded against the respondents.