Intercontinental Bank sacks another 1,500 workers
National News Dec 8, 2009 *As NLC kicks against retrenchment

By Omoh Gabriel & Funmi Komolafe

LAGOS—The Management of the Intercontinental Bank Monday served sack letters to no fewer than 1,500 of its workers. However, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, protested the retrenchment, but did not disclose what its next line of action would be.

NLC’s General Secretary, Mr. John Odah, said in a statement, “our stand is that workers are not responsible for the crisis. The Central Bank of Nigeria and the affected banks know those who abused the trust of depositors to enrich themselves,” Odah said.”

“We will not agree to be made scape goats. As long as those people are not made to cough out the money they took, we’ll not accept a situation where workers will be sacked.”

The sack of the workers is a continuation of the house-cleaning the bank started last Thursday. While Thursday’s exercise was mainly targeted at the top management, this time senior managers, managers, deputy and assistant managers up to management training in the bank were affected.

Vanguard gathered that last Friday, the bank’s management, at a meeting with all the regional and branch managers in its head office complied the list of those to be sack or to be retain in the bank. Managers were said to have left the bank with the instruction to submit the list of those they do not want to work with and the entire list was compiled weekend.

It would be recalled that the management of Intercontinental Bank last Thursday sacked about 50 senior management staff of the bank. But in an official statement the bank said only 26 senior management of the bank voluntarily resigned their appointments.

Insiders told Vanguard that those affected were the executive management from the rank of Assistant General Managers and above. Vanguard learnt that in the exercise all the General Managers, Deputy General Managers except two, and 17 Assistant General Managers were affected by the forced resignation.

The banks statement said “As part of the on-going restructuring exercise in Intercontinental Bank Plc, the Management of the Bank yesterday accepted the voluntary exit of 26 Senior Management officers of the Bank.
“The collective exit which is viewed as a sacrifice, is the contribution of these Senior Management officers to the recently-launched ‘Project Transformation’ which is being implemented in three phases.

“This is expected to pave the way for the new Management to reposition the Bank on a new foundation. The Bank is committed to pursuing bold and necessary changes that will fully restore value and confidence to all our stakeholders.

“It would be recalled that the Bank recently launched “Project Transformation” which is a three- pronged strategic plan to stabilise, re-build and consolidate the bank for greater efficiency and profitability.”
Vanguard investigation, however, revealed that the affected staff were forced to resign as they were told that there services were no longer required.

Those being forced out of the bank, according to a senior officials, were those regarded as being the moles in the bank that appear to be loyal to the erstwhile Managing Director, Erastus Akingbola.

Yesterday the caretaker Managing Director, Mr. Lai Alabi told newsmen in Lagos while reacting to the waivers the bank granted to debtors that “we are contesting with serious issue of moles in the bank, what this people intend to achieve was to malign the bank, frustrate the progress we have made for the purpose of serving certain interests.

“This management has remained focussed in operating in an open manner with a high degree of integrity and transparency. We are succeeding in introducing a culture of good corporate governance which was entirely lacking in the past.

“A few disgruntled elements who are not happy with this new direction are working hard underground to frustrate it. We shall not allow them.”

It was gathered that the sack of the senior management staff was part of the effort of the new management of the bank to flush out senior officers who are believed to be loyal to the former management or had compromised their position during the era. Intercontinental Bank is one of the five banks whose chief executives was sacked by the CBN in the first phase of the banks’ audit exercise.

The banks’ Chief executive was sacked alongside the executive directors for poor corporate governance which led to huge non-performing loans that eroded the shareholders’ funds of the banks.

Sources: Vanguard Newspaper

hmmm is this the beginning?

Sanusi Well Done! now more Nigerians are jobless and many more to go!

what a waste of time!

SHE na like dis we go dey dey,

Something urgent should done. There is a lot of fidgeting going on in all the banks now. I pray for a turn around

Haba! 1500 workers?

Where do you want those ones to go to? Join the already congested labour market?

There is nothing like investing in your passion and setting up your own biz.

Wetin dey hapen for this country sef, I tire oo sacks here and there

@ Dungren: Investing in your PASSION, Thats d ISH now, But we know that we invest with money and not mouth. This money sum of us have to work awhile b4 we stand alone

This marks the new begging of more crimes in this very country.

Government is fighting corruption abi and alongside side banks were affected which eventually affected every sector of the economy. And the masses they said they are fighting for are indirectly been victimized.

Let them watch out for corruption at its peak.

*tears on my pillow*. God please provide for those affected.

i fear wetin dey happen 4 dis country,but God dey

SANUSI HANDI WORK.more grease to his elbow.

good job u are doing there sanusi. keep it up

What would have happened if the bank went down? I guess they'll all be keeping their jobs. Plus the depositors keeping their N50k from NDIC and investors reaping a lot of profit!

milkan05:

*tears on my pillow*. God please provide for those affected.

fu(king crocodile tears
Cry more for the people who lose their lives daily because our banks have failed to help grow Nigeria

The new team shouldn't rejoice for too long because they'll all be replaced when the tide changes; who knows, may be in another 18-24 months time

The "Corporate vicious cycle" will never end. Man will always know man.

But every pls able Nigerian why are some people just heartless? Why not some people consider the fate of their fellow human beign before making a decision? Why are we so wicked? So is this 1,500 people now that will pay the price for failling bank executive crime? It is unfortunate so where wil they go now and wha is left of them? God is alive Sanusi and all the new whatever nonsense they caled themselves will go one good day and someone will be there isn'it? We shall see,

But pls every  able Nigerian why are some people just heartless? Why not some people consider the fate of their fellow human beign before making a decision? Why are we so wicked? So is this 1,500 people now that will pay the price for failling bank executive crime? It is unfortunate so where wil they go now and wha is left of them? God is alive Sanusi and all the new whatever nonsense they caled themselves will go one good day and someone will be there isn'it? We shall see,

This is very sad.

very sad

where exactly are we going in this country.to some it may be the right thing but are you aware that, some people have contributed unimaginably to this bank all in the name of marketing and meeting target with their .oh am short of words.

So sad,i feel for those affected, i wonder where they would start from,i had thought that slashing salaries would have been the best,but others say down sizing is the best.Here we find it difficult to contribute without showing our emotions,i wonder if this is Sanusi's fault.So u guys are saying he should have allowed the rot to go on and thus all the culprits continue with their wickedness?if he had folded his hands and the banks fold up,you dont know much more than 1500 pple would have lost their job, a lot of pple would have lost their live savings,enough would have died of heart attack, i bow for some pppl's way or reasoning oh

How about all those women that paid with their body to work in a bank. Or is their payment due?

na wah  is all i can say

Just when i thought it could never get worse!

_{In God We Trust!}

[size=18pt]SAD![/size]

I can imagine them on a straight line and i'm being asked to count

1,2,3,4,5,6,7-100,101,102,103,104-439,440,441,442,443-716,717,718,719 -1,500, jeez, this is quite a number

May God give them the right attitude at this time.

A big lesson to learn here is to always have an exigency plan (a Plan B).

Whoa, 1500! Not good,

The fire works have begun! No pun intended.

and to think that the erstwhile run-away MD of the bank, wetin be him name sef, ehen, Mr. Erastus Akin, something, yesterday, gave conditions to EFCC for his return into the country. The 1,500 workers that were sacked have been used as sacrificial lamb to cleanse the ills of the bank. what a country! the best is to be an employer of labour.