The Sun News On-line

It’s operation headquarters is concealed in the maze of high-rise buildings in the heart of the business district of central Lagos. From the facade it passes for one of those high-yield blue chip companies where careers are hewn.

But if you are dreaming to hit it big working in the company or looking for a micro credit company to translate a business proposal into reality, you may have come to the wrong place.
For inside here, it would seem, dreams crash, debts rise and life takes a hasty downward drift. But the man who calls the shots here insists that his organization is simply misunderstood. He says he is into a genuine, legal business. Welcome to Nomex Nigeria Limited, a micro finance outfit.

Although making its pitch at a time when government is re-emphasizing the return to small credit financing for the poor and small businesses, Nomex activities are a sad reminder of the nation’s ugly past of voodoo and money-doubling banking – when misleading handbills and letters were deliberately circulated to give the impression that depositors could get double of their deposits or a handsome per cent, but swindled and plunged into huge debts – may well be making a return.
Only 17 years ago, the now moribund Umannah Umannah Resource Managers, Port Harcourt, and Forum Finance organizations, Lagos, which popularized the unorthodox banking were run out of business.

Umannah Resources Managers and Forum Finance may not share same name with Nomex Nigeria Limited, but they have a meeting junction- seeming deceit and sweet-coated promises lacking in substance. Interestingly in the case of the former, the government was not fooled. Their activities were trailed every passing moment and when they came clear as potential time bombs, they swooped on them. In split seconds they ran aground. Curiously, however, Nomex Nigeria Limited has carried on its activities without let, a further confirmation that the practice is indeed genuine, rather than an indictment of the relevant regulatory agencies and their unwillingness to protect the weak from the powerful. For if Nomex is indeed the fraud some of its aggrieved customers are alleging, there can be no explanation for why the authorities have turned blind-eye to an otherwise flourishing high level fraud, especially when it it done in the open. In broad daylight!

Unlike Umannah Resources Managers who promised 60 per cent monthly interest, Nomex in its benevolent imagination, promised 100 per cent of any amount deposited. This was, perhaps, the attraction until things began to go awry sooner than expected. After failing to redeem promises made to some customers, unsuspecting depositors cried out in anguish and the company, which was little known in the neighbourhood, having carried out its businesses (which also included an employment agency) discreetly, became a huge concern. Mention Nomex to anyone in the area, the mood swings from shock to disgust, hate to anger.

Speaking to Saturday Sun, Mr. Abiola Raheem, a trader in the neighbourhood, described their activities as both a pain and thorn in the flesh of unsuspecting Nigerians. Convinced that there is something unorthodox in their activities, Raheem wondered how their activities escaped the eagle eyes of the police at the Lion Building and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, which have offices not more than 25 minutes, drive away. “If many Nigerians fell for Nomex’s mouth-watering promises, it remains curious how its activities escaped the police and the EFCC”, he stated. But this, perhaps, is the beginning of the mystery surrounding their existence.

For Mr. Tayo Ayeni, one of the depositors, he did not read between the lines and so ignored any possible danger signals to his own peril. Ayeni saw the end coming for his Diamond Porcelain Product, DPP, a electrical insulation company, which was experiencing a downturn. He had sold some of his valuable properties but the money realised was yet to keep the company afloat. On the home front, respite remained rather far away as family needs, in a seeming conspiracy, denied him sound sleep. Help could neither come from his friends nor relatives and, haunted by the fear of failing in business and losing his key staff, he was ready to stake his all if only to turn things around for good. He became desperate. Ayeni saw an opportunity to turn things around in Nomex after reading the company’s advertisement in one of the national newspapers. But he was wrong. The move further deepened his obviously suspect financial situation and hurried his ailing business into oblivion.

Dream offer
“I was swept off my feet by the mouth-watering promise to double my deposit and so closed the company’s account to give the offer a try”, he told Saturday Sun. According to a few of the terms of agreement, all loan beneficiaries must collect their cheques on the 15 and 30 of every month and give at least two weeks notice prior to withdrawal, as well as contribute a minimum of N5, 000 every month, among others.

First, Ayeni registered with the company for the loan facility with N3, 000 on February 1, 2006 and one week after, he contributed a total sum of N168, 000. While N150, 000 was for the actual investment, N18, 000 was paid for what they called management and appraisal fee. Acting out a seemingly perfectly scripted hoodwinking script to make the loan believable, the company despatched an inspector, Mr. Pastor Obed Okarafor, after the payment, to his factory and home to assess his assets. If Ayeni thought that the inspection was a signal for a good deal, what happened a month later not only shocked him, but also gave indication that he had made a costly mistake.

He had applied for a N450, 000 loan and spent another N40, 000 on telephone and transportation, but Mr. Eddy Nduonofit, the man at the centre of the controversy and chairman of the company, seemed to have his mindset on other things at that moment. Instead, the company wrote a letter dated February 2, 2006 and captioned: Offer of N450, 000 loan facility and gave entirely new conditions to be met before the loan facility could be approved. The letter, which is in Saturday Sun’s possession stated among others that interest payable on the loan, would be five per cent and payable up front. It also said that another non-refundable two percent flat would be payable upon acceptance of the loan.

But in what looked like a veiled attempt to refuse the loan, the letter, jointly signed by Mr. Sampson Nyah and Mrs. Margaret Amba, General Manager and Manager (Operation and Marketing), respectively, stated that not withstanding acceptance of the new conditions, availability of funds for disburse was subject to regulations that may be imposed by the board/loan committee of the company. It did not stop there. It warned that the offer would be believed to have lapsed if not accepted within 14 days or where expenses relating to the consummation of the transaction are not paid and outstanding on the loan facility cleaned up.

Interestingly after Ayeni, still in his dreamy world, agreed to the new contract conditions, the loan remained a mirage. Today, after several telephone calls and visit to the company could not translate the sugarcoated promises into the cash Ayeni desperately needed, his life has become a wreck. His rent has since expired. His debt burden is on a steady rise. He has lost a lot of flesh and looks frail. Worse still, his children may soon drop out of school. However, an awesomely endowed Nomex, said never to be in short supply of intrigues, produced yet a master trick. Apparently sensing that Ayeni was becoming a pest and looking for a way to keep him at bay, Nomex, through Nduonofit, issued a United Bank for Africa, Plc cheque with number 1033935 to the tone of N300, 000 on May 24, 2006. The cheque drawn on account number, 2052010007498 bounced.

Can’t reclaim deposit
Frustrated after several failed efforts to obtain the loan, Ayeni applied for the refund of his money. Again, it failed.
In his petition letter dated 26, September, 2006 and addressed to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, he expressed concern that despite fulfilling his own side of the contract, Nomex was yet to honour the agreement. “I am aware that the amount involved is below the commission’s requirements, but I write because of the teeming Nigerians who are daily deceived”, the letter stated.

The petition addressed to the director of EFCC alleged among others, that he was using people’s money to seek election as a council chairman in his state, Akwa Ibom. However, if Ayeni’s story were pathetic, Mrs. Irene Okoro’s would draw you to tears. Madam Irene, a businesswoman, could not realize she was throwing her life’s savings into a money-guzzling machine until she deposited N1, 000,000 with Nomex.

Like Ayeni, she had hoped to raise enough money for an international business until her folly came to the fore when her requests for the loan facility earned her not more than a promise to look into her case. Irene made so much trouble with Nomex when it dawned on her that the loan facility was after all, non-existent. After everything failed, including retrieving her deposits, she was said to have hurriedly relocated to London to pick the pieces of her life, and maybe to fight another day. But not for Mr. Chekwas Aka, who until recently was based in Benin Republic.

Aka, who is into publishing told Saturday Sun that he deposited about N150, 000 before it dawned on him that he was expecting too much from Nomex. “I realized rather late that I have been throwing money into a financial cesspool”, he told the newspaper in an interview at his Okota home in Lagos. Reacting with the gratitude of a condemned criminal later granted pardon, he sees himself as lucky. Unlike others, he was refunded N50, 000 late last year.

Aka who would want his every penny refunded has since been visiting Nomex for the balance without success. Asked how he was able to convince Nduonofit to make the part refund, he attributed it to his calmness. Although I was in dire need of money I stayed calm, sometimes not saying a word anytime I visited the office, he said, pointing out that after several visits, Nduonofit promised to pay whenever money was available. In fact, he told Saturday Sun, The money he paid me was a draft. I was lucky to be around when a depositor walked in. According to him, he was convinced the company had no money anywhere and wondered where all the deposits had gone. He revealed that he was issued with two Access Bank cheques in July and September last year, but that the cheques bounced.

Narrating his experience at the Apogbon, Lagos branch of the bank where he presented the cheques for payment, he said the cashier after examining the account wrote Depositor’s Attention Required, DAR, a term, which could mean that there was gray area in the account or that the account owner would have to give clearance before payment could be made.
There is also Mr. Babalola Olarenwaju of Osiyemi street, Ikeja who is owed N200, 000 and Mr. Michael Abi of Zen Bam, located at Ajose Adeogun Street, Victoria Island, owed N80, 000. Others include Alhaja Idayat whose money is put at N74, 000 and Mr. Fati Bello of the Federal Ministry of Labour Secretariat Ikoyi owed N40, 000, among others.

Workers’ plight
While this may sound like a death knell on the fate of some depositors, some former staff like Joy, Alphonsus and Josephine all have stories of woes to tell over many months of unpaid salaries. Fighting on all fronts, Nomex was forced to close down last January, after Nduonofit was arrested and detained by the EFCC following complaints by depositors. A source at Lion Building who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Saturday Sun that on June 17, 2006, one of the directors of the company was detained at the Station and had equally been arrested and detained at Kester Police Station, Oluwole, Lagos, in September the same year.

This detention, investigations revealed, are distant comparisms to the battle that rages within the company. In a telephone interview with Saturday Sun, Joy who was employed as a Customer service executive in August 2005, used the harshest words to describe Nduonofit whom she refuses to differentiate from Nomex, a registered company, since, according to her, they are one and same thing. According to her, she could not receive a full month’s salary until she left the company in December the same year.

“As we speak, the man is still owing me three months salary. All he paid in the name of salary was just a token”, she said. But that was probably the least reason for her resignation. “I could not bear people coming to make trouble almost everyday and go home without getting refunds of either their deposits or the promised loan”, she said. Joy revealed that the situation was so bad that the staff were compelled to tell lies to depositors. “Our office was like a war zone and we wondered how long it would last”.

For Josephine, although she could not be drawn into commenting on her stay in the company, she told Saturday Sun that she has since committed Nduonofit to God for judgment. But an obviously miffed Alphonsus could not place the interest of the newspaper on the matter. “Look,” he said, “You people are the same. What is the guarantee that they would not convince you to confine the story to the dustbin as they have done in the past?”, he asked on telephone. For Alphonsus, our enquiry was a reminder of a sad past. While declining to give details of his experience at Nomex, which he stressed would rather be left in the past, he continued to rain curses and abuses on Nduonofit. Like the other staff, he too thinks Nduonofit and Nomex are fused together in one identity.

No end in sight
Interestingly, those waiting for Nomex to come under the hammer very soon may have to wait for very long, because the company appears to have the law on its side. And to underscore this, the company recently completed a private placement of 80,000,000 units of shares at N1.00 each with a minimum subscription of 10,000 units payable in full on application. It is not likely that a company without the backing of the law could venture into such a project.

But, according to Rev Mike Umoh, a former director, the placement, which started Thursday November 9 and closed on December 20, 2006, was another way of deceiving gullible Nigerians. “It is a pipe dream. I pray that God will remove the veil on people’s eyes so they can avoid Nomex with a long pole”, Umoh who is the presiding pastor of Freedom Bible Church, Iganmu, Lagos said. He told Saturday Sun that he quit after his path crossed with Ndouonofit’s following the latter’s refusal to properly account for depositors funds or redeem the promises made, said.

In his house at Jibowu, Lagos, Umoh told the newspaper that Nomex thrives in deceit. According to him, when he agreed to partner with the Nomex boss, he thought Nduonofit was believable until events proved otherwise. As partners, I expected to be part of decisions and be in the know of all business transactions, but that was not the case.

He told you one thing and did another, he stated. He disclosed that throughout his stay in the company, he was not privy to its accounts. He told Saturday Sun that he walked out of the partnership when his advice to honour the company’s pledge to the depositors fell on deaf ears. I did not understand why the company could not meet up its loan obligations when we had enough deposits and this was the source of our misunderstanding, Umoh said, noting that Nduonofit ran the place like his private estate. He recalls the event leading to his exit from the company: “There was this woman who had met the conditions for a loan… We met – Nduonofit, myself and other management staff and agreed that the woman should be granted loan, but Nduonofit changed his mind after the meeting”.

He said that when Nduonofit could not convince him on the reasons for refusing to grant the loan to the woman, he made up his mind to call it quits. But that turned out to be the beginning of another controversy. If Umoh thought he would simply walk away, he was proven wrong. Nduonofit did what Umoh described as the greatest shock in his working life. He served him a sack letter in which he alleged that Umoh obtained the sum of Three hundred and Seventy Three thousand naira, N373, 000 and issued a forged receipt.

But in a letter dated October 13, 2006 and titled: Re: Purported termination of Appointment of Rev Mike Umoh, his lawyer, Obinwa Etukemka, queried the sense in the sack letter, as according to him, Umoh was never an employee of the company and never received an appointment letter. The letter, which is in the possession of Saturday Sun alleged that Umoh was owed One hundred and twenty four thousand naira, N124, 000, being arrears of allowances for six months. Obinwa went further to state that the said N373, 000 was expanded in securing his bail at EFCC and demanded the payment of Five million naira, N5, 000,000 in damages and a written apology, failing which the letter said, they would proceed against him by due process of law.

An angry Umoh told Saturday Sun that he regrets venturing into a partnership with Nduonofit, whom he described as dubious and crooked in a letter to EFCC withdrawing as his surety. A copy of the letter titled: Withdrawal of surety for Mr. Eddy Nduonofit, in which he stated in clear terms that he would not guarantee his character and urged the commission to follow due protocol, was the newspaper’s lead to other discoveries in this modern times scam ring.

Meeting Nduonofit
As our undercover reporter found out at No 7A/9A, Abibu Oki Street, Marina office of the company, it has been in operation since 2003. Sitting on the third floor of a fading grey painted high-rise building without any pretext to beautify it, it could have taken only the desperate and the exceptionally ingenious to find out. From the unkempt staircase to the floor of business, you meet with a deliberate effort to keep a low profile even in the face of its fast rising profile of notoriety. Inside its beautiful asbestos partitioned office, the unspoken word is secrecy.

You could spend hours without seeing Nduonofit, the chairman of the company on whose fingertips depositor’s hopes vanish into thin air without traces. An insider revealed that seeing Nduonofit was akin to the proverbial camel passing through the eye of a needle. The two security men standing sentry at the criss-crossing steel gate ushering you into the office are under instruction to extract as much information as possible from any visitor or turn the visitor back when in doubt. Those who ignore this standing order do so at their own peril. In fact, not a few are said to have lost their job, coming second to those who quit due to several months of unpaid salaries. They are under instruction to extract from any visitor the purpose of visiting or deny access when in doubt, an insider disclosed.

This came clear when this reporter visited twice, but was denied, because as they said, every information or enquiry has been answered to in a handbill pasted at the entrance to the office and on the narrow and snaking staircase leading to the third floor. Therefore, anyone wanting to see the chairman must show convincing evidence of readiness to transact business with the company or call him on phone, one of the security men told this reporter. After the failed attempts, undercover reporter secured Nduonofit’s telephone number through an insider.

At first, he showed no enthusiasm but when the reporter commended him for creating employment for the teeming jobless graduates roaming the streets of Lagos, it paid off. But his tricks ostensibly to botch the appointment played up again and again. Nduonofit rescheduled the interview several times and reading his tone, undercover reporter decided to pay him a surprise visit. Meeting the newspaper was perhaps, the last thing in the mind of Nduonofit that Tuesday morning. But as it were, he welcomed the visitor albeit reluctantly. While new clients were shielded from those who had come to make trouble having realized that they goofed, the few staff on duty mostly of Akwa Ibom or Cross Rivers State descent tried everything possible to avoid an untoward scene.

Face to face with Nduonofit
Inside, you meet with a man neither average nor brief. Neither fat nor thin, neither tall nor short. Curiously, his heart is rimmed with a disarming mental craft more than his physical looks. Spotting a stripe white shirt over a black trouser, he swirled in a swivel chair. He gave a sit-down wave to the reporter and sought to know his mission. Have information that your company is engaged in fraudulent practices. How true is it? the reporter asked and quickly popped the question: How much do you know Reverend Umoh or Ayeni? His countenance drifted from understudy to apprehension. “You mean Reverend Umoh Mike?” he asked. “Yes”, came the reply.

He told the newspaper that Umoh used to be a staff of the company, but was sacked when the company discovered that he had collected the controversial N373, 000 and issued forged receipts. He buttressed his point by pulling out some files and produced a copy of the sack letter. He also produced a file that contained documents relating to one Ayeni who works with the Nigeria Ports Authority, NPA, and others. However when the newspaper sought to see a copy of Umoh’s appointment letter, he declined. He admitted that the company was indebted to some depositors, but said efforts were being made to clear the debts.

In a letter dated October 10, 2006 and titled: Your deposit With Nomex Nigeria Limited; notice of re-scheduling of payment and signed by Chinedu Onuoha, his lawyer, he promised to pay up the debts on or before January 31st, 2007. According to him, the company failed to redeem its promises, because its deposit was trapped in one of the liquidated banks and partly due to its re-capitalisation drives. The letter read in part: We write to inform you that the process of recapitalisation is still on and this has obviously affected our client’s projection to complete the payment of deposits to its customers”.
It continued: “We advise that you do not present our client’s cheque dated the 31st October, 2006 earlier issued to you”.

Nduonofit added that besides the problem, the company failed to grant loans because some depositors who borrowed money could not pay back. We have a long list of debtors, he announced with somewhat self-assuredness as he pulled out yet another file and handed over the list of names to the reporter. Nduonofit seemed to know his way round words until the reporter mentioned the dude cheques he had deliberately been issuing to some depositors, some of the terms of agreement, his detention at EFCC, his employment hoax and names of some staff he could not pay salaries.

While blaming the company’s recapitalisation for the dude cheques, he defended the non-payment of salaries, saying that most of his employees are on commission and could not expect salary at the end of the month except they bring customers to the company. He also confirmed that the company runs an employment agency, but claimed that some of them volunteered to work with Nomex as commission executives.

However, an insider who refused his name in print claimed that no one has ever been offered job anywhere other than endless promises. Although the source confirmed that some later joined the company, he stressed that it became a last resort after Nduonofit failed to keep his promises.
“Interviews are permanent feature in our office. After paying the non-refundable, (One thousand naira) N1, 000 application fee, the contract relapses into endless visits and promises, he said. The source tasked this reporter to extract from him the name and address of anyone he has helped secure employment, insisting it was another plank of the grand deceit.
Nduonofit avoided this question, but instead showed a copy of a petition dated February 7, 2006 and addressed to EFCC against one Udoh Udeme Tom who he alleged duped the company of Four hundred and ninety thousand naira, N490, 000.

Visit to EFCC
At the EFCC office in Lagos, the newspaper was told that it had received a petition over the said Udoh Udeme, but that Nduonofit was advised to forward his complaint to the police, as it was not in the position to investigate such crime. “This is our major problem. Neither the police nor the EFCC could help recover our money outside”, he said. Nduonofit has seen it all: people coming to shout and make trouble. He has also visited the cells of the police and EFCC that he no longer bothers about the next minute. Indeed Nduonofit understands his trade very well. This, perhaps, is the reason why he has survived so long in such an intriguing business.

However, perhaps, what makes the act very curious is the fact that it is takes place in an area believed to be the elite workplace and business choice. If Marina holds any special attraction to anyone, Nduonofit must have discovered yet the gullible part of those who seek a better life in this bustling business district and has been using his grand discovery to advantage since establishing Nomex Nigeria Limited in 2003.

What CBN says
Outlining the mission and objectives of micro-finance houses, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, said it would offer diversified, dependable and timely help to the economically active poor and low-income households with financial services. The apex bank also said it would also create employment opportunities and involve the poor in the socio-economic development of the country, but Nomex Nigeria Limited, is everything but.

By the time you finish reading this story millions of Nigerians who would have been attracted by their promise of loans without collateral after deposit of a certain sum of money would have been added to the millions already bemoaning their fate. As at the time of going to press, all those who Saturday Sun spoke with, and who went to Nomex for refund of their deposits, including Tayo Ayeni, as stated on his letter of October 10, 2006, were disappointed. However, Tayo Ayeni later confirmed that he was paid N100,000 (One hundred Thousand) in the month of February.