THE LIFE SPAN OF DEBT IN NIGERIA

Two friends were in the same line of business in the south eastern part of Nigeria. One of this two friends whose business was booming lent the sum of one hundred thousand naira (N100, 000.00) to the other after being pestered by him.The debtor wrote and signed an undertaking to repay the debt one month later.

Unfortunately, this man that lent his friend money (the creditor) died suddenly before the expiration of the one month ultimatum to repay the debt.

Ten years later, the personal representatives of the deceased creditor stumbled on the undertaking duly signed by the deceased's friend as the debtor about ten years before.They then confronted the debtor with the undertaking.Although the debtor acknowledged the undertaking, he said it was too late to recover the debt.The personal representatives of the deceased became very angry to hear this from the debtor who still insisted that he would not repay such debt even if they went to court.

THE LEGAL POSITION
The English Statute of Limitations of 1623, which was imported into Nigeria as a statute of general application and which has been re-enacted both at the Federal level and the state levels in Nigeria, fixes six years as the statutory period of limitation for contract cases and recovery of debt is not an exception to this.Therefore, a cause of action in this regard becomes statute-barred six years after the cause of action arose.

In our scenario, the time the cause of action arose was the time the ultimatum to repay the debt expired and that was a month after the loan was taken.The personal representative of the deceased creditor threatened to bring an action to recover the debt ten years after the expiration of the one month ultimatum.

So, in this scenario the creditor's personal representatives' cause of action was statute-barred already and no court would entertain their claim to recover the debt.

Have a nice weekend.

Thank you.