Who inherits multibillion deceased persons’ money: Reps move against banks

Piqued by the agony families and relatives of deceased account holders with commercial banks face in accessing their breadwinners’ accounts after death, the House of Representatives, on Tuesday, ordered investigation into delays usually associated with accessing such funds by their named beneficiaries.
To this end, the House Joint Committee on Judiciary and Justice has been mandated to carry out the exercise within two weeks.
The committee is expected to convene a stakeholders’ conference and work with the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloma Mukhtar, to simplify the processes of claiming funds for beneficiaries of dead account holders in Nigerian banks and courts.
The House resolution was sequel to a motion moved by Honourable Abiodun Abudu-Balogun, entitled, ‘Need to stop the pains beneficiaries of dead account holders go through in Nigerian banks and court.’
According to Balogun, the process of obtaining letters of administration by such bereft families at probate divisions of state and federal high courts was very cumbersome and corruption-ridden. Banks, which are custodians of the funds, often use both official and unofficial hurdles to frustrate beneficiaries.
He added that unofficial statistics put the figures of such unaccessed funds at between N400 billion and N1 trillion with the banks.
He said: “Even the beneficiaries of the bereaved contributors to the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) are not left out, as they are frustrated due to their inability to make claims for their entitlements as a result of the cumbersome processes of getting letters of administration. The inability of beneficiaries to access unclaimed funds may further discourage  people from saving in our banks.”
On his part, Honourable Peter Akpatason maintained that it was quite unfortunate that family members, whose lives had been made miserable by death of their breadwinners, would be subjected to more pains.
When the motion was put to vote by the Speaker, Honourable Aminu Tambuwal, who presided over the plenary, it was unanimously supported.