Removal of 5 Bank Chiefs: Another Northern Agenda?

The action of Lamido Sanusi has been a great concern to the nation in general. While some have hailed the action as a healthy one capable of bringing sanity to the financial theatre of the nation, others have viewed it with suspicion as that aimed at dispossessing the southern part of the nation. Only recently did the nation’s President, came out with an announcement that it was not a northern action but opinions have not changed.

A critical look of the event forming the background to the unexpected action taken by the central Bank of Nigeria Governor indeed leaves room for suspicion    for reasons quite numerous to mention. The South has always had it to bad in the project called Nigeria, if for anything, it will stand to reason that only the presidency of Obasanjo for the eight years past remains the pride of the region at least in recent times. It is a region that has suffered longer than anyone can remember. The emergence of Olusegun Obasanjo as the nation’s president from the southern region was like a kingdom that suffereth violence and only the violent taketh it by force. It was a position that the south took by force by accident following the unexplainable death of Chief M. K. O. Abiola.

Long before this unpalatable circumstance was the undue relocation of the nation’s capital from Lagos to Abuja after unconvincing reasons. It was a sad development that brought the capital city of the nation to the doors of the North. The South has suffered too much in the hands of the North. Since independence, the North has been the captain of boat Nigeria, piloting it to its present state. The South has really suffered too much in the hands of the North. They have determined every event in the country good or bad. Even in the democratic years of Obasanjo, the region cried foul and hankered for the return of power to the region neglecting that project Nigeria is an agreement to which every ethnic-group that make up the state-nation have an equal state. But this would not be.

The end of Obasanjo’s reign was the beginning of Yar’Adua’s reign, and the beginning of Yar’Adua’s reign meant the return of northernization policies to which the nation has known in the years of the military as the rulers of the nation. President Yar’Adua began to hand over very sensitive and juicy appointments to the North like it was never done before. It is highly unnecessary attempting to cite here hold what office. However, the exit of Charles Soludo meant the emergence of Lamido Sanusi as the new Central Bank of Nigeria Chief. Next was his action of take-over of some banks in the country. We recall that the effort of Charles Soludo to re-decimalize the nation’s Naira currency became frustrated by same faces who will not want to take a risk in seeing the nation’s economic sector reformed.

The reason sold to the general public was that the nation’s president was not duly informed by the Ex-Central bank Chief before going public with the idea. Charles soludo was quickly made to rescind the decision and tender a hurriedly prepared apology speech to the president as well as the nation in entirety. The result in Nigeria as usual was the death of a beautiful idea that could have been tried because the cabals who control the nation’s currency would not take a chance and watch the billions in the possession decline a bit. The same cabals are those that admire the Ghana of today which has undergone different reforms including the re-decimalization of their currency.

Lamido Sanusi has since removed 5 bank chiefs in the country in an abracadabra move of offering another abracadabra excuse of failure to perform. The question that remains unanswered is which one bank in the country is performing in an unhealthy environment which even the leaders have failed to find solution to. In contrariwise, again, which bank is not performing out of the banks in the country? Sanusi has acted but the criteria used to determine that the 5 banks were none performing is what has remained mysterious to everyone. It is a known fact that no bank can perform creditably well in this country called Nigeria not even if bought over by the best business brains from America or elsewhere. If they can, why are manufacturers abandoning the country for a smaller country like Ghana? Even a hair dressing salon is programmed to collapse in Nigeria because there are no foundations.

The recent legal judgment upturning the decision of the last administration that willfully collapsed the Savannah Bank has shown it all that a lot happens in this country more than meets the eye. The Savannah Bank that the Central Bank of Nigeria told had failed every test and forced to go underground has been faulted and given right to practice again. These things happen only in Nigeria where no one bothers to ask questions about what happens to depositors’ money.

No one would have expected the manner with which Sanusi overtly announced to the world that the 5 banks were not performing. As a financial institution, one would have expected that he dealt with the matter with discreet because it was a sensitive institution that required it. What purpose does it serve going to the world press with the announcement that the 5 banks in the nation were at the verge of collapse? Was that not a signal that depositors should all resort to panic withdrawal to keep what they have laboured for over the decades? What diplomacy was used to achieve this by the highly respected Central Bank of Nigeria even if it was necessary?

Sanusi took over the banks and daring to take over many more in what he has termed his own kind of reform for the sector but it is still a matter of expectation from the economic analysts on how the nation’s regulatory body can financially take charge of the banks and many more to be taken over. Sanusi has only succeeded in putting a new wine in an old bottle with the imposition of new chiefs on the banks recently taken over by him because the new bank chiefs will lead in the same hostile environments as their predecessors and encounter similar problems caused by the hostility to doing businesses in Nigeria which appears to have defied every solution said to have been put in by our leaders. As it is said by the Igbo people “The broom which swept away the first wife is still lying there waiting to sweep away the second wife”

A simple way to tackle the problem believed to exist only with the banks out of the numerous banks in existence in the country would have been to invite the bank chiefs, conduct proper investigations and take appropriate actions against them. What kinds of investigations were conducted in the first place without the involvement of the insiders?

The problem Sanusi is linking to the banks is not typical to them in the Nigeria; otherwise, one will be tempted to query about what bank in Nigeria is not heavily owed as in the case with the 5 scape-goat banks. The same faces and influential personalities behind the trauma of the bank chiefs today are well known to the Central Bank of Nigeria, and by far surpass the bank chiefs. It is for this reason that the Central Bank has refused to make public the list of these individuals. In any ideal society, these debtors would have been officially declared insolvent or bankrupt but it has not been so.

However, it must be understood that it is not an offence to acquire a loan from a bank and fail to pay back. If such debtors have been servicing the interests arising from the said loan, why go after them like criminals since the interests form the major priority of the said bank in which case the bank chiefs will not be troubled. This is also part of the investigation. The situation now is that Sanusi has hurriedly acted in such a way that no one has heard from the heads of the 5 banks officially yet the banks have been hurriedly taken over with the chiefs involved arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission. This is a militant attitude only expected in a military regime.

Nigerians for sure believe that if the 5 banks are offered for sale, only the debtors have the capacity to purchase them. So it is a case of same people dictating how things are run in the country but the question waiting to be answered is whether the very influential magnates who have almost ruined the banks will be given the opportunity to purchase them or will the banks be sold to foreigners. What is even more on the lips of the masses is whether anyone of them will choose to buy over an already officially declared ailing bank by the Central Bank of Nigeria. How this matter will be handled will be of paramount to everyone.