Everyone that has a car or rides in a car should have seen this sign that is always conspicuously placed in parking lots or parking spaces ‘cars parked are at owners’ risk’ and you may be wondering what are the are the legal implications of this sign, what if something goes wrong with your car; it gets damaged, burgled or the whole car stolen at the parking lot who will be held accountable. You might have even been in this kind of situation before; what’s the legal implications of the sign; who pays for the damages, what are your rights and remedies at law in this circumstance, who do you sue to recover damages, do you even have enforceable rights or remedies at law?      

On 19th of December1986, Justice K.O Anya (rtd) traveled  to Owerri for a book launch. When he got to Owerri he checked into a hotel called Imo Concorde Hotel, a renowned hotel in Owerri, Imo State.

When it was time for him to leave the next day, been the  20th of December 1986, he discovered that his car; Pequot 505, AC salon he came to the hotel with had been stolen from the hotel premises where he parked it the previous day.

He decided to sue the hotel management. So he took the hotel management to court, joining the two securities on duty the day he checked and the day his car was stolen to the suit, on the grounds that the respondents were negligent by allowing his car to get stolen. He prayed the court to grant him damages, total damages of N150,000.00; N65,000.00 being a special damages as the current value of his Pequot 505 salon car.

The trial court decided in his favour held that he had a right to action and can recover damages from the hotel which he checked in and his car was stolen and that the defendants are in breach of duty of care which they owed to the plaintiff and consequently are liable to the plaintiff for the loss of his said car so damages was awarded to him.

The hotel management, displeased with this ruling of the trial court, went on appeal. The appeal court reversed the ruling of the trial court holding that he had no right of action against the hotel that his car was stolen from.

Justice K.O. Anya then appealed to the Supreme Court since the decision that the trial court held in his favour was reversed by the Appeal court. 

The Supreme court upheld the decision of the court of Appeal and held that Justice Anya cannot recover damages for his stolen car from the hotel. The Supreme Court in its Obiter Dictum stated that the general principle is that the tort of negligence only arises when a legal duty owed by the defendant to the plaintiff is breached and to succeed in an action for negligence, the plaintiff must prove by the preponderance of evidence or the balance of probabilities that;

(a)  the defendant owed him a duty of care

(b) the duty of care was breached

(c)  the defendant suffered  damages arising from the breach~ PER A. KALGO, JSC.

The Supreme Court also went further to state that it is a generally accepted principle of negligence that a person only owes a duty of care to his neighbour who would be directly affected by his act or omission.

The question now is ‘who then is your neighbor?

In old case Donaghue v. Stevenson,  Lord Atkin provided an answer to the above question that your neighbors (in law) are persons who are so closely and directly affected by your act that you ought to reasonably have them in contemplation as to be affected  when you are directing your mind to the acts or omissions which are called in the act in question.

To this effect, the parking facility of a hotel, church, airport, restaurant, supermarket, etc is a gratuitous service given to users of that place and in the absence of express agreement the securities or the management of the parking lot has no legal duty or obligation to provide security for the cars parked in their space hence cannot be held for negligence if anything goes wrong with the car as it is just a moral obligation for them to look after your car and not a legal obligation.

By the reason of this Supreme Court judgement in the case of K.O. Anya V. IMO Concorde Hotel, the sign ‘car parked are at owner’s risk’ is an express and open caveat to everyone that the security men guarding the parking lot owe you no legal duty or obligation to make sure your car is safe neither can they or anyone else be held responsible for negligence if anything goes wrong with your car.

Be it as it may, as it is said that in every general rule there must be an exception, there’s also an exception to this caveat ‘car parked are at owner’s risk’. When you park your car and give the car key to the security men guarding the parking space or the management of the parking space and you draw their attention to where your car is parked, then there may arise a duty of care which places a legal duty and obligation on the management and security of the parking space to make sure your car is safe and secure. If anything goes wrong with your car at that instance you can sue the management of the parking space for negligence and recover damage as they are in breach of duty of care owed to you.

Therefore, if you want to hold the management and security men of a parking lot of a hotel, church, restaurant, supermarket, airport, market, mosque, offices, etc , accountable if anything goes wrong with your car then you must drop the car key with them, and draw their attention to where the car was parked.

The Nigerian banking industry is facing an unprecedented challenge from the emerging fintech market that is rapidly fixing every friction in the payment business, especially cross-border payment frictions. The situation does not only scuttle the current growth of banks, it also threatens their future.

Nevertheless, while fintech remains a threat that the Nigerian banking industry needs a formula to neutralize, there is another situation that the banks have made a drastic decision to arrest.

In the first half of the year (H1’21), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) raised the interest rate on one-year Treasury Bills (TBs) to 10.1%. The TB rate was 5.74% at the end of last year. This decision of the apex bank ignited a renewed preference by depositors to put their money in Treasury Bills as it becomes more profitable than leaving it in banks’ fixed deposits.

With this development, the amount of available funds in bank deposits has greatly declined, prompting the banks to raise their rates for deposited funds.

Vanguard reports that Nigerian banks have raised  deposit rates by 140% in a bid to attract more funds from customers and address the sluggish growth in deposit recorded in (H1’21).

According to the report, the financial statements of the 13 banks listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), show that customers’ deposits grew marginally by 6.6% to N34.13 trillion at the end of June this year from N32.02 trillion at the end of December last year, indicating a very sluggish growth as a result customers’ unwillingness to leave their money in bank deposit.

To entice depositors in order to increase banks’ deposit growth in the second half of the year (H2’21), banks needed to make them an attractive offer, which means raising the deposit rates.

Vanguard noted the latest report on Deposit and Lending Rates in the Banking Industry published by the CBN, where the average deposit rates of the top 13 banks rose by 140% to 5.3% on Friday September 17th from 2.2% at the end of December last year.

The 13 banks are Access Bank, Ecobank, FirstBank, FCMB, Fidelity Bank, GTBank, Stanbic IBTC, Sterling Bank, UBA, Union Bank, Unity Bank, Wema Bank and Zenith Bank.

The banks’ deposit rates according to the report

Zenith Bank leads the pack, lifting its average deposit rate by 2,450% to 4.75% in September from 0.22% in December. But in terms of growth in customers’ deposits, Zenith Bank came third, with 8.1% growth in deposit to N5.77 trillion at the end of June from N5.34 trillion at the end of December.

GTBank came second, raising its deposit rates by 4.57% to 5.57% in September from 1.0% in December.  In terms of growth in customers’ deposit, GTBank came ninth with 4.0% growth in deposit to N3.63 trillion at the end of June from N3.51 trillion at the end of December.

In the third position is Fidelity Bank which raised the deposit rate by 4.50% to 5.5% from 1.0% during the nine months period. In terms of growth in customers’ deposits, Fidelity bank came 2nd with 16.5% growth in deposit to N1.98 trillion at the end of June from N1.7 trillion at the end of December.

Following the trend above, Access Bank, which raised its average deposit rate to 9.52% in September from 1.93% in December, indicating a 3.93% increase, took fourth position. Wema Bank on its part raised its average deposit rate to 4.94% from 1.47%, indicating a 2.36% increase during the nine months period. In terms of growth in customers’ deposits, Wema Bank occupied the 11th position with 0.05% growth in deposit to N808.9 billion at the end of June from N804.9 billion at the end of December.

Stanbic IBTC came 6th as it raised its deposit rate to 5.52% in September from 1.86% in December, indicating a 1.97% increase. Stanbic IBTC recorded the highest growth in customers’ deposits with 16.9% growth in deposit to N958.4 billion at the end of June from N819.9 billion at the end of December.

Ecobank occupied the 7th position. The bank raised its deposit rate to 9.67% from 3.5%, indicating 1.76% during the nine months period.

Union Bank also intensified its quest for customers’ deposits by raising its average deposit rate to 8.28% from 4.28%, indicating a 93% increase during the nine months period. In terms of growth in customers’ deposits, Union Bank occupied the 10th position with 3.6% growth in deposit to N1.17 trillion at the end of June from N1.13 trillion at the end of December.

Sterling Bank, on its part, raised its deposit rates to 9.77% in January from 7.15% in December, indicating a 37% increase. In terms of growth in customers’ deposits, Sterling Bank occupied the eight position with 6.7% growth in deposit to N1.02 trillion at the end of June from N951 billion at the end of December.

Despite slashing average deposit rate by 33% to 1.0 per cent in September from 1.5% in December, UBA recorded the fourth highest growth in customers’ deposit, with 7.4% growth in deposit to N6.09 trillion at the end of June from N5.68 trillion at the end of December.

Though FBN Holdco retained its average deposit rates at 0.15% during the nine months period, the bank group was able to record 4.1% growth in customers’ deposits to N5.1 trillion in June from N4.89 trillion at the end of December.

With the decision to review their deposit rates upward, the banks have set a bait to win depositors back, but also have set up a competition against the Treasury Bills.

The population of Nigeria is more than 200 million; stop using 187 million as that now is stale. Growing the number of citizens is one area Nigeria has outperformed the world. And it will not stop. Yes, recall the governor who gathered young men together in 2019, and told them that provided they keep having more babies and marrying many wives that they would decide who runs Nigeria. So, UNESCO, UN, WHO, etc can put out any initiative, the fact remains that population is a political weapon in Nigeria, and it will continue to grow.

From the electoral umpire, the total number of registered voters stands at 84 million, 15 million more than the figure in 2015 which stood at 68 million.  Yes, according to INEC, 84 million people registered through biometric systems for the 2019 election. Though there are imperfections, you need to be at least 18 years to register for election voting in Nigeria. So, these 84 million people were at least 18 years old. Also, I personally think Nigeria does not exceed 70% participation on registered voters within the qualified population. This implies that in the whole population, 18 years and above should be around 120 million people.

Many independent data have shown that Nigeria has 44% of its population between 0-15 years. If you extrapolate to 18 years, you will have about 52% of the population below 18 years – let us just keep it at 50%.

Based on above, doubling 120 million will give you 240 million people. Keeping it at 210 million takes care of many issues like INEC fudge factors of under-registration, double-registration, etc.