Since Monday when banks began to publish the names of delinquent debtors, the questions on a lot of minds have been: Now, what happens? What’s the fate of these debtors? Does the public naming of the debtors equal to a blacklisting from the banking system? Thankfully, the Central Bank of Nigeria has responded to those questions.
Muazu told The Nation newspaper that the exercise is a recovery drive, “an effort to get them (debtors) pay back what they owe.”
He said that it was not a move to blacklist the debtors or remove them from the banking system.
“The essence of publishing the list of debtors is to shame these delinquent debtors into paying up. The idea is not to blacklist them from paying but to shame them into paying,” he said.
He noted that those whose names were published “were given three months to make good on paying back what they owed,” but refused to take advantage of the window.