Banks have threatened to shut down because of the decision of the Niger State Internal Revenue Service to seal off some of their branches over N456.7m tax liability.

The affected banks are Stanbic IBTC with tax liability of N113.2m; Polaris Bank, N74.8m; UBA, N68.9m; Union Bank, N47.1m; First Bank, N45.7m; Heritage Bank, N31.5m; Unity Bank, N14m; and GTB, N8.2m.

This was contained in a letter written by Niger State Bankers’ Committee, in collaboration with officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Minna branch.

The committee threatened to close all the bank branches in the state if the affected facilities were not unsealed.

However, the internal revenue service advised banks operating in the state, especially those whose branches were sealed off as a result of the non-payment of outstanding taxes, to stop the blackmail and pay their debt.

According to the Executive Chairman of the service, Mohammed Etsu, said the board does not have any transactions with the committee.

The board informed the general public that the banks were sealed off as a result of non-payment of taxes to the state government after several negotiations and efforts failed

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Etsu stated, “The banks were treated as individual corporate entities and not as Bankers’ Committee, a body with which the revenue service has no transactions.

“Six out of the eight banks originally sealed, having fulfilled part of our demands, have been duly unsealed pending further reconciliation.”

It was gathered that high level discussions were ongoing with one of the top banks to open its branches today (Monday).

“It is, therefore, unfortunate that a body with which the revenue service has no transactions will collaborate with the CBN officials to threaten the service from performing its lawful duty of collection of revenue on behalf of the Niger State Government,” Etsu added.

He stated that it was strange for the committee to act like a registered trade union when the individual banks, except for two or three, had sorted themselves out.