BENIN CITY: A Benin- based businessman, Okoro Paul is currently on the run following his inability to pay back a forty million naira (#40million) loan he allegedly obtained from a microfinance firm .
Mr Okoro Paul who is the leader of a multi- purpose co-operative society is alleged to have taken the said amount on February 15, 2014 on behalf of himself and ten others. The group of investors were given a moratorium of eighteen months to pay back the money.
However following the fire incident that gutted the popular Edaiken market in Uselu on February 10,2015, it was discovered that Mr Okoro Paul had single handedly invested a substantial part of the money in his multi- million naira electronic shop located in the market.
Mr Paul subsequently lost all his life savings and investments during the unfortunate fire incident that destroyed properties worth millions of naira.
Although, Mr Okoro Paul was said to have reported the incident to the police and the loss of his huge investments in the fire disaster, he however failed to honour the obligation to pay back the loan.
The NIGERIAN OBSERVER gathered that the finance firm in a bid to recover its money, hired the services of a private debt recovery agent who employs the use of Ayelala deity (juju) among other means, in threatening loan defaulters to honour their obligations.
But rather than renegotiate the terms of the loan payment, Mr Okoro Paul was said to have vanished into thin air.
All efforts by the private debt recovery agent and officials of the microfinance firm to locate him had proved abortive as his whereabouts and that of his immediate family remained unknown.
Meanwhile, following complaints lodged by a senior offlicial of the microfinance firm, the police in Benin have declared Mr Okoro Paul and two other persons who were all signatories to the loan agreement wanted.
The two other men are Chief Ferdinand Alao and Mr Kingsley Aduba. Both men are also traders in Edaiken market, Uselu.
