Anchor Borrowers: CBN set to arrest chronic loan defaulters
By Ibrahim Adeleke
The Central Bank of Nigeria has said it is no longer business as usual for chronic loan defaulters in the anchor borrowers intervention programs.
Saladu Idris, the CBN Comptroller for the Bauchi Branch, said this while speaking at the secretariat of the Nigerian Union of Journalists in Abuja.
Specifically, the CBN said it will no longer tolerate farmers believing that the money from the programme is a gift and will arrest and imprison defaulters until they repay the loans.
The Anchor Borrowers Programme is one of the CBN’s primary intervention strategies introduced in 2015 to increase agricultural production and reduce food imports
However, news of defaults, farmers marrying more wives with the loan is threatening the success of the ABP.
CBN has expressed anger and has announced plans to arrest, lock chronic defaulters of its loan, targeting rice farmers.
Idris further stated that despite the fact that many farmers have stayed, loan defaulters were notably prevalent in the rice farmers segment.
He said: “Although a couple of individuals have paid back, there are a handful who have not. We contacted the heads of the rice farmers’ associations and informed them of these individuals.”
He explained that the CBN would use the Nigerian police to arrest farmers who have failed to repay loans taken under its Anchor Borrowers Programme for rice and other agricultural production.
