‘Nigerian Banks Not Interested In Property Dev’

The Nigeria Ambassador to Uganda, Chief Nya Asuquo, has indicted Nigerian commercial banks for their failure to assist people who invest in the real estate sector.
Asuquo made the remarks at the official handing over ceremony for completion and sales of 150 housing units (phase one) of the Aka Luxury Estate in Nya Asuquo Satelite Town in Calabar, at the weekend.
He urged the commercial banks to turn a new leaf and help investors who are interested to heavily invest in the real estate sector instead of exploiting the citizens of the country who go to the commercial banks to seek for loan to develop the sector.
“It is the banks in Nigeria like Zenith Bank and First Bank that ought to help the real estate sector. The Nigerian banks instead, prefer to exploit the people and declaring dividends rather than putting in money for development as done in developed countries”, Chief Asuquo said.
He stated that, “there is nobody who builds a house or farm or does any type of investment in developed countries without the banks actively encouraging him, but here we have the reverse”.
Asuquo also stressed that it was due to the hard work undertaken by the developers in the company that made the construction engineers to achieve that stride that they had achieved, adding that, the company already has a Plan B to undertake the second phase of the project that has to do with the building of another 600 housing units in the estate.
He criticized the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) for not releasing money to its customers as at when due, adding that “we have been able to overcome the difficulties of some commercial banks, including Nigeria’s Federal Mortgage Bank that will promise to give you money but will never give you the money as at when due”.
Asuquo who named the estate after his late grandmother noted that, “this estate is called Aka Estate, name of my late grand mum who gave this land to me. And for the fact that I don’t want to cheat myself I named it after myself  in Nyah Asuquo Satelite Town’ Calabar.”

Friday Nwagbara, Calabar