The Presidency has said the current banking sector reform being driven by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is targeted at salvaging the sector from imminent collapse, and not to promote any Northern agenda as alleged by some people.
In the meantime, operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) posted to the five troubled banks in the country have recovered a total of N10 billion from some of the bank debtors.
EFCC’s Head of Media and Publicity Femi Babafemi confirmed the recovery in a telephone chat with THISDAY.
Fielding questions from State House correspondents yesterday on allegations that the ongoing reforms by the CBN is targeted at weakening the existing stronghold of the Southern part of the country on the nation’s economy, Presidential Spokesman, Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, dismissed the allegation as untrue.
Adeniyi said the Presidency was not unaware of a possible shock and hiccup which the reform might have generated, warning that neither President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua nor the Federal Government would be moved by such actions.
Adeniyi also confirmed that the President was expected back in Abuja today after a one-week trip to Saudi Arabia for scheduled medical check-up and lesser hajj.
The President had travelled on Friday, 14th of August, 2009.
Adeniyi said: “I am aware there will be a few initial shocks and hiccups with Sanusi’s reform like it happened during Soludo’s consolidation exercise and that those affected will fight back and we are talking of very powerful vested interests here. But the President is convinced it is the right course of action by the CBN to avert what could turn out to be a national catastrophe in the financial sector and that is why Sanusi has his unwavering support.”
He explained that if the recent action of the apex bank was targeted at undoing the Southern part of the country through the promotion of a Northern agenda, the same CBN would not have resorted to empowering the banks by pumping over N42 billion to save them from collapsing.
“When people don’t want to address the real issues in Nigeria, they resort to cheap talk about some Northern or Southern agenda; are you saying that these bankers were distributing their money with Southerners? I recall that when Prof. Chukwuma Soludo came up with Banking Consolidation in 2004, there was also an outcry by some bankers who were losing out with the campaign that Soludo was pursuing Igbo agenda. But looking back today, assuming Soludo had not consolidated the banks then, we would not even be talking of any banking sector today,” he said.
According to Adeniyi, “to come back to the point, if we were to assume Sanusi took the action he did in promotion of a so-called Northern agenda, then we should ask some questions: why would CBN pump in about N420 billion to bail out the five banks owned by people we have identified not as Nigerians but Southerners? Why would he appoint Southerners to replace the ones he removed? Why would he use our collective wealth as a nation to stabilize the savings of people who, if we buy the current argument, are Southerners?”
While advising Nigerians to “focus on the real issues”, he stated that the ongoing reforms “is a national agenda in the interest of depositors whichever part of the country they come from because we cannot continue to live a lie. Nobody has disapproved the fact that there were serious holes in those five banks and in any case, it was already common knowledge that at least three of those five banks were in serious crises before Sanusi moved in so what are these people talking about?”
He said the Federal Government was comfortable with the Sanusi-led reforms and urged Nigerians to cooperate with him and the new management team already put in place, noting that “I think Sanusi’s intervention is already yielding positive results”.
On the President’s trip to Saudi Arabia and his expected return, Adeniyi said: “Yes, the President returns tomorrow (today) having completed his medical checks early last week before performing the Umrah”.
And as the seven-day ultimatum given the debtors by the commission to pay up their debts ends today, it emerged that EFCC Chairman Farida Waziri would lead the commission’s debt recovery team and had already relocated to Lagos for the assignment.
Babafemi said Waziri relocated to Lagos with about 100 operatives and two units of mobile policemen.
The EFCC chairman had last Wednesday issued a seven-day ultimatum to debtors of the five banks whose management were sacked by CBN to tidy up their debts or face arrest, prosecution and possible seizure of their assets.
Confirming payments by some of the bank debtors to THISDAY, Babafemi said those that did not have the physical cash had brought documents of their properties, which they intend to sell to offset their indebtedness.
He did not give details of those that have responded to the commission’s ultimatum.
But THISDAY learnt that besides, Global Fleet’s Group Managing Director, Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim, who was said to have paid 11 million pounds - equivalent of N3 billion to Oceanic Bank yesterday, two other banks - Intercontinental Bank and Afribank have recovered N4.8 billion and N3.1 billion respectively.
Besides, he said additional 100 operatives of EFCC and two units of mobile police were yesterday redeployed to Lagos to complement the 250 operatives of the commission that had earlier been deployed.
EFCC had also set up five different teams charged with the sole responsibility of pursuing all the identified bank debtors immediately after the expiration of the ultimatum handed them last Wednesday by the commission’s chairman.
In a bid to compel bank debtors to pay up, the CBN had last week published names of major debtors, which has since generated lots of controversies and sparked off strings of rebuttal by some of the debtors.
And two days ago, the commission declared the former Oceanic International Bank Plc CEO, Mrs. Cecilia Ibru, and her Intercontinental Bank Plc counterpart, Mr. Erastus Akingbola wanted following their failure to honour the commission’s invitation.
Three of the affected former MDs already in the custody of the EFCC are Union Bank’s Bartholomew Ebong, FinBank's Okey Nwosu, Afribank’s Sebastian Adigwe – the other two - Intercontinental Bank's Akingbola and Oceanic Bank's Ibru – are yet to be found.
In a statement, the anti-graft agency said: “The two former bank executives are wanted in connection with fraudulent abuse of credit process, insider trading, capital market manipulation and money laundering running into billions of Naira.”

Then what is it? or are they trying to let us feel like this is just happening for the first time.it has been happening even before soludo left the seat of CBN and i wonder why the new head of the apex bank had to come out openly like that and failed to follow the footsteps of his predecessor.Something seems to be fishy about this whole thing and i think some people have their personal agenda concerning,maybe it is a continuation of the northernisation process of the Federal Republic Of Nigeria by President Musa Yaradull and his cohorts(Stupid abokis).God save us from this selfish tribes oooo,obasanjo was never like this ooo.