Money is often regarded as the common LovePeddler, the universal procurer of people and nations. On the flipside, it is the perfect means for bribing yourself through the inconveniences of life. Ask Tokunbo Abiru, the billionaire MD of Skye bank, he knows.

Curiously, however, the former Executive Director of First Bank Nigeria Plc, would be unable to acquire such luxury had he not toed the path less taken in his feverish pursuit and acquisition of money. Tokunbo cultivated the money habit very early in his banking career and pursued it in markedly different tradition from the ways of his peers.

Don’t blame him; he saw money as the perfect means for bribing his way through the inconveniences of life, appreciating also that it matters in the mix, in his pursuit of ease and luxury. While many of his peers gained from their wealth only the fear of losing it, Toks gained from his wealth, comfort, contentment and a deep sense of purpose.

While he served as ED of First Bank, Tokunbo made tons of money and he also helped a lot of Nigerian magnates to do same. For instance, it was during his tenure as ED that the bank lent out money to the highest number of people, especially the troubled billionaire businessmen, Jide Omokore, chairman of Atlantic Energy Drilling Concepts Nigeria Limited, and Kola Aluko who he loaned a reported N120 billion naira which is today non-performing. It was also during his tenure that the bank suffered the highest number of non-performing loans.

Thus, many businessmen made their fortune via Tokunbo’s very accommodating loan schemes. It never mattered to them that they were playing with other people’s money, poor, helpless customers to be precise; they simply lusted and groveled for the good life which Tokunbo’s fixation helped them achieve.

It was an open secret that Tokunbo and Omokore maintained a robust and enviable friendship while he was in First Bank. When he gave the oil moguls the loan, Jide, a smart and generous man, gifted him a property in Banana Island, Lagos and a Mercedes Benz G Wagon which he drives even as you read. Yes, Jide settled Tokunbo very well with cash and everything good things money can buy.

At his new mansion in Banana Island, Tokunbo has on display the choicest and most expensive automobiles. His houses in Swiss Cottage, and Colindale in London combined are worth over 10million pounds. Though in and around London where he has these sprawling, eye-popping properties, he is renowned and respected for his deep pocket and la vida loca lifestyle, unconfirmed reports have it that the properties are allegedly linked to the former Minister of Petroleum, Diezani Allison-Madueke and Jide Omokore’s monumental bribery saga and if care is not taken, he might be called in for questioning.

Those close to him say he has a water-tight defence for his lifestyle; that some of those automobiles and properties are mere gifts.

Indeed, oftentimes, a billionaire debtor would give a bank director the gift of a new car, apartment in a highbrow area or return tickets to exotic vacation spots anywhere in the world, to induce the bank director to provide illicit cover for them.


Consequently, rather than ensure that their billionaire friends refund loans taken, senior bank staff actually teach them to avoid repayment even as they provide the culprits protection from any sort of backlash from within the bank. The Capital investigations revealed that it is in view of such lavish inducements that senior bank directors are always willing to go the whole hog to do the bidding of their billionaire friends cum chronic debtors.

It is however not only to Omokore that Tokunbo is beholden; he is eternally in the debt of former Lagos State governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. As a major shareholder in Skye Bank and with the enormous political influence at his disposal, Asiwaju did not break a sweat before nominating and installing Tokunbo at the helms of affairs of the bank. Although two other directors of the bank were allegedly appointed and installed by powerful persons in the presidency, Tinubu typically muscled his way through to install his stooge.

But that is as good as his story gets; by crook or other suspicious means, the Skye MD has been able to suppress the unpalatable news about the role he played in the devastation of First Bank loan acquisition by Omokore and co. This might not be for too long as investigators are hot on his trail.

Okay.

When you are done with your blackmail, you will go and sleep