Lagos—A Lagos State High Court judge, Justice Olubunmi Abike-Fadipe, did not accuse Zenith Bank Plc. of bribing judges and lawyers for 11 years to pervert justice, according to the certified true copy, CTC, of her judgment in a suit by Real Integrated and Hospitality Limited.

From the court papers sighted by this reporter, Justice Abike-Fadipe granted the claimant’s claims against the bank, but did not accuse the bank of bribery, and there was no mention of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, governor in the judgment, as claimed by the online mediums.

Gombe State Universal Basic Education, SUBEB, is the second defendant in the suit.

The bank has appealed the judgment, insisting that it was a neutral party in the transaction between the claimant and the second defendant.

The bank, in its defence before the lower court, had stated that it issued two advance payment guarantees, APGs, for N872,780,552.80 on behalf of the claimant on January 17, 2011.

The bank said it was part of the conditions that the amount would be received into the claimant’s account and it would place a lien on it until the claimant was discharged by the second defendant (SUBEB), who awarded a contract for the supply of dictionaries to the claimant.

They said it had only received N785,502,507.44 from January 1 to June 30, 2011 into the claimant’s account.

It added that it was not a party to the agreement between the claimant and Gombe SUBEB for the supply of dictionaries and that the letter of credit transaction between the claimant and the bank was a distinct contract that did not impose any obligations on the bank with respect to the actual performance of the contract for the supply of the dictionaries.

The bank denied receiving or turning down any instructions from the claimant as the claimant account with the bank was active at all times with payment and withdrawals from the account.

They said the claimant had access to the funds in its account which it had utilised, except for the amount deposited as cash collateral for the APGs.

The bank said its refusal to grant the claimant access to the collaterised fund was predicated on the fact that it did not receive authorisation from Gombe SUBEB to release the fund to the claimant as per the terms of the APGs.

They added that the second defendant had “called in” the APGs on the ground of non-performance by the claimant of the contract for the supply of dictionaries.

The bank said Gombe SUBEB had also informed the claimant of its termination of the contract based on non-performance of the contract for supply of dictionaries.

The added: “The first defendant could not carry out any instruction from the claimant to transfer the guaranteed sum over which the first defendant had a lien until the second defendant had written to the first defendant discharging it from liability.”

It was learnt that the judge was also miffed with the quotes attributed to her that was not part of her judgment.