FORMER Managing Director of Intercontinental Bank Plc., Dr. Erastus Akingbola, yesterday lost his bid to stop the planned sale of the bank to Access Bank Plc, by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as a Federal High Court, sitting in Lagos, dismissed a suit he instituted against the move.

Akingbola and an erstwhile executive director of Intercontinental Bank, Bayo Dada, had filed the suit to challenge the propriety of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for business combination signed by Intercontinental and Access banks without recourse to them as shareholders and former directors of the former.

Akingbola and Dada also maintained in an affidavit in support of the suit that the Managing Director of Access Bank, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede and his deputy, Herbert Wigwe, are actually indebted to Intercontinental Bank to the tune of N16.247 billion.

The loan, which is said to be outstanding till date, was said to have been procured through a firm, United Alliance Company of Nigeria Limited.

They added that the said firm recently wrote a letter, dated March 28, 2011, to Mohmoud Alabi (Intercontinental Bank Managing Director), claiming that the debt was N10.2 billion, and requested for a change in repayment date up till December.

Besides, the plaintiffs stressed that Intercontinental Bank had an excellent business reputation, which earned it meritorious rating by informed industry watchers, but that the fortune of the bank nose-dived when Sanusi sacked them in August 14, 2009 without lawful reasons and fair hearing.

The plaintiffs added that the MoU for business combination between Access Bank and Intercontinental Bank was drawn up by the CBN and its governor, and that the said MoU stipulated that the entire capital of Intercontinental would be cancelled and the bank would be dissolved without winding up.

They, therefore, urged the court to set aside all steps and decisions taken by the CBN and its appointees on the board of Intercontinental Bank from August 14, 2009, except those in the ordinary cause of the day to day business operations of the bank.

They had also sought an order nullifying a directive from the CBN removing Dada as a director and an order that a general meeting of the shareholders of Intercontinental Bank should be conveyed for the purposes of electing directors for the bank.

Also, Dada had, in particular, prayed the court, presided over by Justice Okechukwu Okeke, to set aside a letter issued by the CBN removing him from the board of Intercontinental Bank.

But, the apex bank and other defendants, in their separate preliminary objections, had contended that the petitioners lacked the locus standi to file the suit, and that the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain it.

The defendants also contended that the suit was statute barred in that it disclosed no reasonable cause of action against them.

However, the court, in a ruling on the preliminary objections filed by the defendants, held that the suit was statute barred and belated.

Justice Okeke also held that the case was an abuse of court process, because there is an action already filed by other interested parties on the same subject-matter, which is still pending before a sister court.

The court further stated that the petitioners failed to issue a pre-action notice on the defendants before instituting the matter in court, which was a condition precedent for the suit to be justified.

The judge stressed that the suit was belated in the sense that some of the actions being challenged were done as far back as August 14, 2009, when the CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, removed some bank chiefs.

While also ruling on Dada’s removal from the board of Intercontinental Bank, Justice Okeke said that the letter through which he was removed was not tendered as exhibit in support of the suit, which, according to the court, “is very vital to his case”.

“The CBN has enough powers to supervise banking operations and looking at Section 48 of the Banks and Other Financial Institution Act (BOFIA), the CBN has enormous powers over who becomes a director of any bank. In effect, the CBN can validly remove and appoint bank directors,” Justice Okeke ruled.

The judge also noted that the refusal of the petitioners to include the letter through which Dada was sacked from Intercontinental Bank’s board robbed the court of jurisdiction, because the letter would have indicated whether the action was done in bad faith.

Akingbola and Dada had listed Intercontinental Bank and its Managing Director, as well as other directors, including Abubakar Sule, Gbenga Alade, Olusegun Osilowo and Suleiman Yusuf as co-defendants.

The list of defendants also included Intercontinental Bank’s Chairman, Raymond Obieri, Seinye Lulu-Briggs, Toyin Philips, Chris Alabi, J.S. Nwokolo, Sanni Adams, Access Bank and the CBN.

Meanwhile, a statement signed by the Corporate Affairs Manager of Intercontinental Bank, Edy Odumosu, hailed the ruling and declared that the coast is now clear for the bank’s recapitalisation before the CBN’s deadline.

In its reaction, CBN’s spokesperson, Mohammed Abdullahi, stated in a statement that the judgement was an affirmation of its stance on the entire process of recapitalisation of the bank, adding that it also affirms the fact that the CBN had always complied with the law in all actions it took in recent times.

He added: “It is the hope of the CBN that the shareholders will understand these and allow the process to move forward without further delay.

“They should realise that all these court cases are doing damage to the process, which may negatively affect the desire of the CBN to retrieve some value for them.”

Abdullahi further stressed that it was instructive to note that the judge clearly said that the petition was an abuse of the court process and statute barred and, therefore, unnecessary.


http://www.compassnewspaper.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8068:-akingbola-loses-bid-to-stop-sale-of-intercontinental-bank&catid=308:headlines&Itemid=600

Erastus Akingbola, just like Steve Jobs of APPLE COMPUTER is coming back to restore the Glory of INTERCONTINENTAL BANK PLC.

Businesses have been destroyed and many Nigerians have been thrown out of their jobs because their employers can no longer get new loans from banks. Nigerians should not be deceived. Nowhere in a capitalist economy are loans not the normal norm of running a business. What Sanusi’s actions have done is to create the perception that borrowing money to run a business is bad. It is not. In all places all over the world, businesses run basically on bank lending. Lending is the fuel for a capitalist economy.
Creating unemployment: Sanusi recently admitted that the rate of unemployment in Nigeria has hit 49 per cent of employable Nigerians. After making that statement, Nigerians should not forget that Sanusi in two years has contributed significantly to this level of unemployment in the country.
His activities in the banking sector have contributed to about 40,000 jobs being lost in the banking sector in two years. The disruption that he caused the banking sector and the subsequent starving of funds to the real sector from the banks has resulted in some manufacturing companies either closing down completely, or reducing their production capacity significantly. This act has also led to significant job losses in the real sector of the economy.
A good example of what Sanusi’s