BEATZLOADED

There are reports that three Nigerian banks are set to take over telecommunications firm Etisalat today, Wednesday, over unpaid N541.8 billion debt.

An Etisalat experience centre on the Lagos Island, one of the company’s assets that now be forfeited to the banks.

According to the report, the move follows the failure of the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) to broker a peaceful resolution between Etisalat Nigeria and a consortium of banks.

However, these are not the only banks as there are also some foreign banks that have also been reportedly having a running battle with the telecoms company over the loan facility totaling $1.72 billion (about N541.8 billion) and was obtained in 2015.

The report says the loan involved a foreign-backed guaranty bond and was given to Etisalat to finance a major network rehabilitation and expansion of its operational base in Nigeria.

After failing to service its debt since 2016, the banks reported the company to the Central Bank of Nigeria and communications sector regular NCC.

Etisalat blamed its inability to fulfill its obligation to the banks on the current economic recession in Nigeria but the banks replied that Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) regulations demanding immediate cut down on the rate of their non-performing loans give them no other option.

A senior bank official among those affected said Etisalat management was given option of filing for bankruptcy but it was not taken. This option, he said, would have required the banks just a management to oversee the telecoms firm’s operations.

Although the NCC is not happy with the takeover, a top source at the regulatory body NCC said on Tuesday, March 7 that it had approved the takeover that is now expected to happen Wednesday

Nollywood Yoruba actress Liz Anjorin has shut down rumours that she has a sugar daddy sponsoring her acting career.

Nollywood actress, Liz Anjorin.
The single mum recently spoke to Punch Saturday Bears and explained how her hard work is what her gotten her this far in her career.

In a recent interview with Punch, the veteran actor who lost his wife Henrietta in June, 2016, said he married a second wife because his first was not in the business of film-making and he needed a trusted assistant who understood the industry.

However, when the first two wives died during childbirth, he resigned to fate until a friend advised him against being a single parent. And so he took two more women, the third who passed on last year.

Here is Jide Kosoko’s story According To The PUNCH:

“If I have to be frank, I regret being a polygamist. I must confess. I did not really plan it and it was designed beyond my power because I never planned to marry so many wives. I first married one wife but she was not part of the job I was doing and in those days, you needed a very trustworthy assistant. That pushed me to marrying the second wife. I stayed with them until I lost them both eleven months apart in the same scenario – childbirth.”

“A doctor of mine advised against [staying single]. He said I was still young and needed to take a wife. I looked at the situation critically and realised that a lot of my friends were coming to my apartment with their girlfriends and I saw myself as becoming irresponsible and my house was a free house. Some of those of my friends were married yet they still brought their girlfriends to my house. I felt if I had a wife, all that would not happen so I tried to get another wife. I was romancing two women with the mind of settling down with one. But eventually, the two entered. That was how I became a polygamist.”

“It would be madness if at this stage, at 63 years old, I would be thinking of having a new wife. I have over 12 children I am taking care of and I have some of them that are grown up and are taking care of me as well. My wife died and left me with two teenagers and I have to take care of them.”
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