By Gideon Njoku
In what would go down as one of his most embarrassing moments, members of staff of Heritage Bank Plc, Abuja, on Monday, June 21, laid a siege on the home of Senator Andy Uba.
They were there, they said, to appeal to Uba, to pay back the loan he had, allegedly, taken from the bank years ago. They said the non payment of the loans has put both their jobs and the bank in a precarious situation. Their jobs are on the line, they alleged, and the banks operations likely to be affected.
Uba, a former Senator, is a Governorship aspirant under the banner of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the upcoming Anambra State Governorship election.
The staff dressed-down for the task of “name and shame” which they embarked on. For a Monday, they wore jeans trousers and black T-shirts.
They besieged the Senator’s Abuja home Monday morning, blocking the gate with one of the vehicles they came in.
Obviously, nobody opened the gate to let them in for what they said they planned to be a peaceful meeting with the Senator.
In an apparent frustration, one of them addressed nobody in particular, explaining their mission.
He said: “Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen. Today is Monday, 21st of June, 2021. And, we are here, staff of Heritage Bank, Abuja branch.
“We are in front of Senator Andy Uba’s house in Abuja. Senator Andy has been owing the Bank for a couple of years now.
“And, we are here for a peaceful meeting with him, very peaceful meeting, to ask him to, kindly, repay those loans because those are Depositors’ Funds. And those monies, if they are not repaid, will throw the number of people you see here, and their families out of work.
“And we know the situation of the economy now. If these numbers of people are thrown out of work, you know what it means.
“So, we are here to appeal to the Distinguished Senator to pay back this money so that these people will not lose their jobs and, of course, the bank will not become a going concern”
It is not known how much Senator Uba’s alleged indebtedness to the bank is, or for how long he has been owing them, but it is surprising the bank went public with the situation.
It is, also, not known if Uba is the only alleged bank debtor singled out for this embarrassing incident, and if the Bank’s high command was in the know, or why Uba was not able to have a meaningful dialogue with the bank before now.
Not a few people allege the embarrassing incident could have been politically motivated as Uba is a leading Governorship aspirant in Anambra.
It is not known how this incident will affect his ambition, but in more civilised climes, it could mark the end of his political career.
Uba came into the Nation’s political consciousness during the President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Government. He was, unarguably, one of Obasanjo’s most influential Aides, manning the Domestic Affairs portfolio.
Thereafter, he ran, and won the Anambra Governorship election under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. But, he goes into history as the shortest serving Governor in Nigeria. The Court threw him out after two weeks in office, ruling that Peter Obi’s tenure as Governor, started the day he was sworn into office.
He became a Senator, still under the PDP but, inexplicably, defected to the APC. Since then, his political  profile has been on the decline. He had, unsuccessfully, ran for both the Governorship and Senatorial seats under the APC.
In 2019, he was, surprisingly, defeated by Oil man, Senator Ifeanyi Uba.
He has just been cleared by the APC to aspire to the Anambra Governorship seat later in the year. And, now, the Heritage Bank “wahala.”
