Nigeria will never rise until it stops persecuting and maligning its best brains and most transparent hands. I had not heard of any details surrounding the exit of Mr Kayode Pitan from the Bank of Industry until recent days of reading online news reports, as no one from home in Nigeria breached the family's stoic silence about the mistreatment and victimization meted out to him by the Nigerian government as a parting shot for his years of blemish-free meritorious service to the nation.

Mr Kayode Pitan is my uncle. We grew up together in the same compound during his youth days as a student in high school. I was a very small boy then before being shipped off to the US. Thereafter, I lost contact with him for several decades. We reconnected circa 2013 when I visited Nigeria and he later visited me in Atlanta where we spent plenty of time together and have remained in close contact since. My childhood memories of him are that of a serious, disciplined, focused, quiet, honest and easy going big bro.

In my adulthood, I have never been more frustrated with a strait-jacket straightforward, principled, strictly-by-the-rules uncle as I have been with Mr Pitan, most especially while he was at BOI. His appointment to the pinnacle of BOI's management encouraged me to leave the US for Nigeria to try and take advantage of the numerous federal government industrial and manufacturing loan programs domiciled at BOI.
I applied for a few of the programs but the stringent criteria set by the government made the loans unattainable. Regardless, Mr Pitan did not bend any of the rules for me. I made numerous efforts to apply for different industrial loans from BOI. None of the loans were approved simply because I didn't meet the strict government set criteria for loan eligibility. The entitled selfish side of me expected my uncle to step in and soften some criterion. Uncle simply stayed aloof. He did not bend the rules. I was silently angry, disappointed and disillusioned. The inevitable success of the ambitious industrial development projects I sought the loans for would have turned me into a dollar multimillionaire if he had softened the eligibility standards for me during loan application, especially when I applied for a multimillion dollar World Bank funded loan facility for Solar Power projects in Nigeria.
This solar power loan program was administered by BOI. As with the other unsuccessful BOI loans I had prior applied for, I spent thousands of dollars and millions of naira of my own money to pay consultants, conduct project research, generate sundry technical reports, project evaluation study, proposal preparation, Environmental Impact Analysis, contracts with US and UK project technical partners, etc.
It was a solar power mini grid project designed as a compact mobile system to power entire housing estates, industrial estates, small communities etc, and one of Pastor Ashimolowo's massive cluster of housing estates near RCCG Camp was chosen for the pilot project. I was very passionate about the project because of my passion for breaking Nigeria's perennial and debilitating electricity failure bondage. I wanted desperately to execute this ambitious and well designed project as a success story to spur a revolution of commercial scale solar power mini grids across Nigeria to light up the nation. I had recruited formidable US and UK technical partners with solid track records in similar projects.
I submitted the proposal to BOI. Uncle only steered me to the appropriate staff and relevant department in the bank. Then he stepped back and stayed aloof. BOI staff, knowing the reputation of my uncle as a no nonsense straight-by-the-book technocrat, took me through the wringer, applying the strictest standards of loan eligibility criteria upon my project proposal. The loan was not approved and uncle did not intervene.
The relevant BOI personnel and the records, dating back to 2019, are still there at BOI for anyone to verify the veracity of this story. I was angry. Very disappointed. But I respected his stance of transparency, fairness, honesty and probity. These traits, along with his renowned clinically sharp management efficiency, accountability and above board straight shooting forthrightness are the same character traits with which he had handled the many Nigerian banks he had headed in the past as well as the RCCG parishes he had started from scratch and built into extremely successful thriving mega parishes. In the early days of the Tinubu administration, my humble self and many at BOI and elsewhere nursed high expectations of him being appointed as the next CBN governor as a natural next national calling for him with his no nonsense, transparent and rigorous play-by-the-rules managerial style to thoroughly sanitize Nigeria's apex bank and the entire corruption riddled Nigerian banking sector and thereby usher in an era of fiscal/economic stability for the nation.
This is the same man that highly placed low-life elements in Tinubu's administration roped into false accusations of financial impropriety. A man that was already an accomplished minister of the gospel, very comfortably retired banking executive, well established private sector businessman with a successful medical practitioner wife before Vice President Osinbajo called him up for national duty. A man of solid moral repute, well respected in the banking industry for his vast experience, renowned discipline, squeaky clean record, uprightness and transparency? This is utter travesty. Opprobrious injustice.

The fact that EFCC refused to bring any charges or indictments against Mr. Pitan only shows vividly that nothing was found against the man and that this entire exercise was a political witch hunt, a smoke screen designed to bully and push him out of BOI to make way for a politically favored appointee.

I challenge EFCC to prove me wrong.

The entire BOI establishment, RCCG Olive Tree parish at Banana Island (which he founded from scratch, built up massively and handed over to Pastor, later Vice President Yemi Osinbajo) and Lekki Tabernacle Of David parish (which he also founded from scratch and also built into a mammoth congregation), General Overseer Adeboye of RCCG and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo himself, will all readily attest to Mr Pitan's sterling credentials, incorruptible character, professional competency, probity and godliness.
What the Nigerian government purveyors of political brigandage have done to this humble servant-hero of the Nigerian nation can only serve to further repel Nigeria's best brains farther away from the corridors of national service when they are needed most to come help rescue and help develop the nation. This atrocity could well, in the near or distant future, incur the wrath and judgement of Providence upon the insufferable charlatans of government that perpetrated this injustice, and perhaps also upon the helmsman of federal government under whose unperturbed gaze the atrocity was permitted. Their identities and guilt are recorded in the High Courts of Heaven.

Nigeria will not rise until it stops persecuting its best brains and most transparent hands like it did Mr Pitan. Such travesty. What a tragedy!

David Samuel.

Best brains in Nigeria aren't going into politics or serving in government

Politicians doesn't have conscience, the game is a dirty game full of lies,deceit and backstabbing

This is what happens when you guys vote in thieves, robbers and grabbers - there is no place for honest people and patriotic people at all.

Happy renewed shege!

Good development.

coputa:
Best brains in Nigeria aren't going into politics or serving in government

Politicians doesn't have conscience, the game is a dirty game full of lies,deceit and backstabbing

Bro,u aint telling no lies!

most banks high profile are linked to RCCG. Best brain?

BabbanBura:
This is what happens when you guys vote in thieves, robbers and grabbers - there is no place for honest people and patriotic people at all.

Happy renewed shege!

U just shook a big table my dude!