₦airaland Forum

all those accusing Nigerians of being noise makers and not doing anything are alleged pathetic cowards.
list your contributions to the struggle apart from the same crime you accuse others of.
lead the way and see if we will not follow you.

kosovo:
I can not find a way to comprehend what you are talking about.

guy, it seems you are unable to communicate in simple english.
your original post is pure comedy.

kosovo:
This is not the place to Discuss any Bomber issue, Such would be deleted Effective Immediately. continuous violation would however lead to a corresponding Ban action.
Thank you!

my apologies.

okebulus:
If this guy grew up in Nigeria, I think He wouldnt Have done this.

This serves as a lesson to our Rich politicans that stael our money and send their children abroad( I no talk say the guy papa na thief oh ),

But if to say this guy go skool for nija He for no do this thing wey he do

so being rich is now a crime?
we should all aspire to numbing poverty?

Kay 17:
religion is to be blamed. all religous adherents are indoctrinated and brainwashed and taught to defy reason.

stopping talking crap.
all these sensational generalization is childish.
i know loads of muslims who are models of humanity and completely non violent.
in addition, i know non religious persons who defy reason at every turn.
there is no need making sweeping generalizations and hoping to sound intelligent in the process.

suraj,
I am still waiting to hear from moderate muslims like yourself on this bomber issue.
i have not seen you on any of his threads.

thank God

i doubt coca cola signed this with their clear eyes and mind.
550 million for what?

edoyad:
You have to understand that unless we discourage this irrational belief in an unseen God this kind of rubbish will continue. It's bad enough we fight over our ethnic or racial origins, but when you put religion in it . . .
Just close your eyes, take a deep breath and say in your head, "There is no God"

so closing your eyes and saying it, extinguishes the existence of God?
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and said in my head and my heart, thank God for God.

oya, back to topic.

email:ijeomanwogwugwu@thisdayonline.com, 12.28.2009

Friday before last, I got a call informing me the UBA Banking Group had laid off all the workers - 31 in number - from its stock broking subsidiary, UBA Stock Brokers, leaving behind the managing director and two dealers. I called the bank to confirm the veracity of the story and obtain the precise number of people affected by the rationalisation exercise.

Some effort was made by its Corporate Affairs unit to respond to my enquiries, but with a different twist. I was informed that as opposed to the 31 that had been sacked, only 5 to 7 had been laid off, while twenty-something others had been redeployed to other units of the UBA Group. The reason given for the rationalization exercise was that the downturn in the stock market does not justify the retention of so many dealers by the stock broking arm of UBA.

As I was given this information, I wondered if there was a commensurate rationalisation in the number of stock broking accounts UBA Stock Brokers manages of the 17,000 it is said to have in its portfolio. I also wondered how with a staff strength of three – the MD and two dealers – the company was successfully going to manage 17,000 accounts. Since UBA was eager to down play the incident, I decided to keep the story in view pending when more information could be obtained to give it gravitas.

UBA’s stock broking arm is not the only bank or subsidiary in the country rationalizing staff and/or its unprofitable branches. Rumours abound that First Bank of Nigeria Plc has done the same. So have Intercontinental Bank Plc, Bank PHB Plc, Diamond Bank Plc, Oceanic International Bank Plc, Wema Bank Plc and Skye Bank Plc, among so many others. Where banks are not right sizing, institutions like Fidelity Bank Plc are said have slashed salaries by 20 to 30 per cent, while Finbank Plc is thinking of following suit. One or two others that once owned corporate jets used by their executives for local and intercontinental travel, have disposed of them.

GTBank Plc is another kettle of fish all together. GTB in the last few months has found itself in a position that so many banks would die for. Never known to be a bank interested in expending too much energy on retail banking, GTB in recent months has suddenly witnessed an upsurge in the number of retail customers it has to serve. The increase in its customer-base resulted from customers’ loss of confidence in the troubled banks, compelling many of them to move their accounts to banks considered safe.

However, given its previous strategy (which somehow worked for it) to focus more on corporate and high net worth customers, its IT infrastructure was never set up to support the sudden influx of thousands of new retail customers. As GTB struggles to upgrade its IT infrastructure and open new branches, it has been dogged by frequent system shut downs, making it almost impossible for customers to use their ATM cards to pay for transactions, withdraw cash from other bank ATMs on the Interswitch network, and even in some instances, withdraw from ATMs belonging to GTB. The bank’s customers are now compelled to wait on long queues reminiscent of the tally number-era of 70s and 80s before they can withdraw cash from their accounts; that is where they are fortunate not to be informed by GTB tellers that their accounts cannot be accessed for the day.



Yet, not one of these banks has been sensible enough to inform the public and their customers of the measures being taken by the institutions to cut costs. Neither has GTB apologised for the inconvenience suffered by its customers or attempted to explain away the long, suffocating queues at its branches. In fact, Intercontinental was only forced to issue a statement two Saturday’s ago after The Guardian newspaper that same day published a story not officially confirmed by the bank that it had laid off 1,500 workers. So was Oceanic Bank shortly afterwards. A few weeks earlier, Intercontinental was also compelled to offer some jaundiced explanation on why it granted a N31 billion loan waiver to high net worth customers only after the story broke in the press.

Even worse, the guerilla tactics being employed by some of the banks is reflective of how uncivil and uncouth the business culture is in Nigeria. When dispensing sack letters to staff, some banks are said to have sought the assistance of the Nigerian Police Force to deploy units of gun-totting policemen to their premises in order to avert the likelihood of protests or fracas that may arise from the sacks.

Some don’t even have the decency to pay full disengagement entitlements when firing their staff. In several instances, disengaged staff are not given cogent reasons in the sack letters as to why they being let off. In effect, there are no clear cut criteria how some banks determine who should be let go and those to be left behind.


This is not good enough. The new era being championed by Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, with the support of the media and generality of the public, is one anchored on tighter credit controls, improved risk management, enhanced corporate governance structures, and greater transparency.

That ten out of 24 banks are tottering on the brink is because they were opaque and downright dishonest. As a matter fact, the losses being declared by almost all the banks (including those that escaped the CBN hammer) is indicative that all the banks have not been forthright with their accounts.

Until the CBN compelled them to start making write downs on the non-performing loans on their books, they were declaring spurious paper profits. Granted that there is a general consensus in the financial system that the CBN has to provide an unambiguous framework on lending and prudential guidelines, the massive write downs by the banks would not have happened if a new helmsman had not taken over at the CBN and forced them to bite the bullet. It would have been business as usual.

But it is high time bankers begin to get it into their system that it is no longer business as usual. Banking, in principle, is hinged on trust. When a bank asks customers to put their savings with them, the bank is explicitly asking that prospective depositors trust it to manage their savings responsibly and that it will keep them abreast of developments in the institution.

Added to this, all but three banks in this country are public companies quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, implying that banks are not just accountable to depositors but also to millions of shareholders that need to know that their investments are managed prudently. This means that banks are expected to be very open about their operations.


When banks allow the media to speculate about their operations and instruct their Corporate Affairs managers to go round media houses to suppress stories, they activate the rumour mill and are not doing themselves any favours. They are effectively demarketing themselves. Staff rationalization exercises are very unpopular but are sometimes unavoidable during economic downturns and in situations when institutions have been greedy and reckless, as was the case in Nigeria and the Western world. Stories that could have been properly managed by the institutions are left to disenfranchised staff who have been sacked to disseminate. If the stories are embellished by such staff, the banks have no one else to blame but themselves.


Personally, I am sick and tired of being called by Corporate Affairs units not to name banks whose branches have been robbed, or not to publish stories when fraud perpetuated by crooked staff has been uncovered, or look the other way when salaries have been slashed and workers retrenched. When I call a bank to confirm a story, I want to be told the truth and not a convoluted version of the truth.

As a journalist and bank customer, I am doing myself and millions of customers and shareholders a disservice by concealing information which ordinarily should be out there. Fraud, closure of branches, sacking staff, etc, are some of the glitches banks have to contend with, even when self-inflicted. By being transparent about the downside of business and measures being put in place to safeguard against their recurrence, banks would earn the trust of the public.


Banks must start educating customers and the public better. Bank robberies are no fault of theirs, and the banking public must be informed that efforts are being made to make branches safer and that deposits are insured against losses that may arise from robberies and fire. Even cost cutting measures and other survival strategies have to be adopted by institutions when they incur huge losses as is the case today. However, reluctance by the banks to improve transparency would simply mean nothing has changed

kosovo, this is not the national assembly where they speak meaningless and high sounding words.
try and talk like an educated person,which i know you are.

on another note, i support the merging (not deleting o!) of the bomber threads.they are all over the place and seem to be duplicates

the charade of the barbarians is gathering speed.
these thieving comedians have boxed themselves into a corner.

dolu2007:
They where alerted before the incident. They should have taken proper and adequate action since then.

how many people can they take action against?
Did you hear that their are around 900,000 people on watch lists?

[quote author=becomrich; link=topic=372859.msg5206723#msg5206723 date=1262065913]I have lived in the north, that why I have been posting make northern majority by removing the yorubas, edo, delta and bayelsa into benin republic. I know how thier mind thinks. 

You would be shock by the number of Mutallab in the north. , more than 100,000 of them. Here is it. It would not cost us anything to  removing the yorubas, edo, delta and bayelsa into benin republic and make the north majority.

Here is an highway in benin republic, there is no sure high in Yorubaland, edo, delta and bayelsa who are in Nigeria. Please people can go to satellite picture and check and if you find one call me liar. This highway takes 6 cars and from the nigeria boundary to cotonue and longer than the badagry expressway, which only take 4 cars. nearly 20 kilometer longer.[/quote]This is the section poster of the year,right?
very lovely.
well done sir.
you are in line for another award in the coming year.
Nigeria, i hail.

I watched a TV statement this week by a senior officer of "Homeland Security" in which he stated that the US has around 500,000 people on the entry-level "watch list". He went on to say that Abdulmutallab had done nothing to merit being promoted to the next level "watch list", which has “only” 400,000 names listed ?.
Who can "watch" 900,000 suspects?

i seem to be coming to the conclusion that irrespective of how much the US govt investigates and follows up leads, this terrorist matter will never be fully contained.
How many people can they put on the watch list and no fly list?
they will end up putting almost every muslim on the no fly list.
how safe are they from internal terrorists?
the ones on no fly list will concentrate on US allies.
this is one messy web,whichever way, we seem screwed.
The US will keep pumping billions into their security system but i doubt it can ever be water proof.
imagine the sick boy is alleged to have flown without a passport?
after all the arguments on this site over who reported first and how much info the father reported to whether he should have been on watch or no fly lists, the scary truth is that the world is as unsafe as it was on 9/11.
inspite of the billions America nad its allies are spending, nothing change.

By Lawani Mikairu, with Agency reports
Al-Qaeda has claimed the failed December 25 bombing of a US-bound aircraft in a statement posted on an Islamist website yesterday, US monitoring organisations said.
The statement, which was accompanied by a picture of the suspected would-be bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, boasted that the “Nigerian brother” broke all security barriers for his operation, dispelling the “great myth” of American intelligence, SITE Intelligence said.
He used explosives technology developed by the Mujahedeen in Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) “manufacturing department,” it said.
AQAP acknowledged that a “technical fault” caused the failure in the operation,” the statement added.
Another US monitoring group, Intelcentre, also reported the same posting.

na so e dey start o!!!!

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News/National/5503837-146/Nigerian_police_clash_with_Islamic_sect.csp

idomababe:
I really do feel sorry 4 the mutallab family, its such a pity that all their effort in raising their child ends up in this mess.
As a mother, i feel so sorry for his mother because she lost a son, anyway i look at it,
As for the boy only God knows what would become of him, probably guantanamo bay.
Its such a pity.
Lessons  learnt?
With children we can only pray for them to make the right choices.

my point exactly.If you don't pray, then hope.
After you have done your part as a parent, you are not guaranteed a good result.
All you can do is pray or hope.
We have all seen siblings that turned out totally opposite in character despite same parental guidance.

Kobojunkie:
Reputable in what sense? Aren’t we LEAPING TOO FAR here?

come on, you are being unfair.
the chairman of First bank for years and before then UBA, i think.
the US embassy will listen to him with some measure of respect than they will some unknown alhaji who just walks into the embassy accusing his son of being an extremist.
both reports will listened to and investigated but you can not wish away the fact that in our society he is reputable and i think the report was made to the Us embassy here in naija.

proudly9ja:
@sauron,

I agree with you that all should be watched but my point is all CANNOT be watched unless another measure is taken. Especially if you are talking of over 500,000 people from different Nationalities who know they are being watch. It is expensive and also very difficult. People change names, change appearances, etc. Unless a person is specifically targetted, it is almost impossible to trace his movements. Lets even say you put one man on every suspected terrorist, thats over 500,000 man power needed!!


What I am more worried about is the Naija situation. Do we have terrorists in Nigeria? Are terrorists being trained? We have not heard anything at all from the Nigerian Police Force to assure us that we are safe at home. The man's father also reported to Nigerian Authorities. What did they do?

what do you want them to do?A force that is only effective in collecting road toll from danfo drivers, is that the force you are expecting to get involved in matters that even the Us homeland is bungling?
Here, we are at the mercies of God, as usual.

like i said earlier, this statement was obviously written by a lawyer.
it says so much without saying anything in particular.
On a second thought, one can not be sure of anything on the basis of it.
When they are ready to tell us the full story, we will listen.
This statement is plain grandstanding.
When they decide to robe the father in, he will tell the full story.

Beaf:
I don't know what you are going on about.
I didn't say anything about "poor background". I said his parents didn't bring him up well. They failed.

can we extend your logic to every child who turned out a responsible citizen in society, despite the worst efforts of their absent father and whoring mother?
parental guidance is not a magic bullet. it has obvious limitations.

[quote author=Aloy~Emeka link=topic=372507.msg5201883#msg5201883 date=1262015863]You are scared of your father because you are either a wimp or not mature enough to make your own decisions. I am not scared of my father and that has never made me commit crimes or even think about it. You should love your father and not scared of him. Is he kingkong or what?[/quote]lol

a few points from my viewpoint;
parenting has very little to do with this matter.pastors and imams have kids;some become criminals and prostitutes,siblings of the criminals and whores enter the monastery.Every individual will make his or her own choice,even children.
the statement from the family is neither here nor there.I am not surprised.that is what you get when lawyers get involved.they say so much without saying anything in particular.
in one breath they say he has held extremist views for a while, in another breath they say his bombing conduct is out of character.
What exactly was he doing in Yemen in the first place? holiday (is that a tourist destination?),learning arabic (don't they learn arabic in Naija again?).
We need to know what exactly the nature of his father's complaint to the authorities were?
If he reported the boy for holding extremist views and mixing with terrorist crowds, then it could lessen the shame on the father and Nigeria in this matter.

A crisis foretold

In spite of the hype about a solid banking system with strong institutions, the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation had said in its Annual Report published in 2008 that only four of the 24 banks operating in the country were sound. It rated 16 banks satisfactory, four unsatisfactory and one unhealthy. The CBN and the NDIC later attempted to douse the tension created by this ‘shocker’ with manageable interpretations of the words sound, satisfactory and unhealthy. But observers had been given the hint that all was not as well as was being touted by the banks.


Ripples created by a June 2009 edition of The Africa Report, which listed Oceanic Bank International Plc, Intercontinental Bank Plc, Union Bank Plc, Access Bank Plc, Ecobank Plc, First City Monument Bank Plc and Sterling Bank Plc as banks in the “shaken” category, were also greeted with rage by the big banks in the group. They shot the ratings down, using their financials as evidence of strength. Intercontinental Bank had claimed that its total assets rose by 586.3 per cent, up from N205bn in 2005, to N1.4tn in 2008. For Oceanic Bank also, total asset base as at the end of December 2008 grew to N1.26tn, up from N1.01tn in the preceding year.


However, Bloomberg News had quoted the World Bank’s Global Development Finance Report as saying that some estimates indicated that as much as $10bn or half of all the banks’ holdings were “tied up in questionable assets”.

Where is the celebrated capital?

It is difficult to crack the mystery behind the mismatch between figures celebrated post-consolidation and revelations by the Sanusi-led CBN. Apart from reports of fraud and self enrichment against some former bank chiefs, which reportedly left worn out balance sheets, there had also been rumblings among the banks that some accounts were made up.


A former managing director of one of the first generation banks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity with our correspondent, said, “Some banks had engaged in falsification of accounts. Some of them could not make the N25bn requirement by the CBN but they patched it up. We knew it. Even at that, those that met up with the requirement had to invest what they had and that was where the misplacement of priorities set in.


“Many diverted heavily to the capital market and the investments went down and also constituted significant losses. Everyone at that time was looking at a one-way flow, thinking the market would keep rising.”


Universal banking, to the former bank chief, also opened avenues for crises since leakages in subsidiaries naturally affected the main banks.


According to him, “Banks had subsidiaries, which were dealing in the capital market. They lost a lot of money, which affected the banks. There was also insincerity on the part of some of the operators and this affected everybody. They were planning on false data and other banks around were ruffled.


“When people start making noise and declaring huge profit, and you are in the same market, in order not to lose your market share, you also have to look for ways to keep being in business. Unfortunately, we now know that all that had no basis.”


The Deputy Governor, Operations, CBN, Mr. Tunde Lemo, also told our correspondent recently that it had been found, through full disclosure and transparent financial reporting, that the growth in the banking sector in the past three years had been superficial.


“If right now, two-thirds of the capital the banks claimed they raised is not there, then it was bubble capital, which means that with the reality on ground, they have to be slim and fit,” he noted.


Beyond this, the CBN audit might have confirmed that reckless credit management had eaten deep into the bank’s accounts. The first list of debtors of five banks published by the CBN had put total non-performing loans at N747bn. Oceanic Bank had the highest amount of non-performing loans of N278.2bn, followed by Intercontinental Bank with N210bn. Afribank, Union Bank and Finbank had non-performing loans of N141.9bn, N73.6bn and N42.4bn, respectively.


A second list of debtors, published on the CBN’s website on October 14, 2009, put the non-performing loans of the five banks that failed the second round of the apex bank’s stress test at N451bn. Bank PHB accounted for the highest non-performing loan of N170.96, while Wema Bank followed with N101bn. Spring Bank’s total non-performing loan was N95.59bn while Unity Bank and ETB had N46.1bn and N34.12bn respectively.


A breakdown of the figures, however, showed that the loans across the banks were concentrated mainly in the hands of the same top Nigerian businessmen, oil companies and stockbrokers. This, experts said, explained why manufacturers maintained that the benefits of consolidation did not trickle down to them.

ov:
The recent dismissal of staff from various banks is totally unacceptable, unprofessional and inhumane. You should be aware by now that the problem these banks have, is mainly as a result of the bad loans they gave out. Most of such loans were given out by their loans department and approved by top management staff. Therefore, if such dismissals are to take place, then the management of the affected banks should start such an exercise from their loan departments and top management personnel while ensuring such staff are brought to book. Unfortunately, observations have shown that the bulk of the relieved/sacked/dismissed staff are of the middle and lower cadre and not the top management personnel. The dismissal of such staff who know nothing about the bad loans given out is sad and painful-very painful. After all they are not the cause of the banks’ problems and predicament. It just might interest you to know that many of these bad loans were given to friends and associates of top management staff who duly approved such loans-after all they had their own ‘cut’ in such deals. Pathetic!

The management of such banks should endeavour to get a true picture of how things got bad in the first place and eliminate such problems from occurring in future. The way they are tackle this issue beats my long term logical reasoning and understanding. I therefore see these dismissals as a temporary solution to a long term problem. Some top management staff who are guilty of given/approving some bad loans are still in the banking system while those credible ones have been flushed out. Like they say one bad egg in a basket can turn the whole basket bad. In essence, If we still have some guilty top management staff in our systems, then it is inevitable that this same problem will arise in the future. I suggest to management of all affected banks; flush out all loans departmental staff and most top management staff, make middle and lower cadre staff to fill such vacant positions and persecute ALL those guilty of giving out bad loans.

Sanusi has succeeded in taking the banking industry many steps back. Like it or not. CBN advised banks to cut down on staff strengths and reduce salaries by as much as 30%. Reduce staff strength? Well, this will have a rippling effect on the economy. Take an average sack of about 1300 staff per bank and multiply by ONLY 20 banks. This means an additional 26,000 people will be forced back into the already saturated labour market. Crime rate, frustration, inflation etc will inevitably be on the increase. What a sensible human being in charge of an apex bank would have done or suggested is simple to cut down on salaries alone and not include reducing staff strength.
What these decisions of CBN have done is simply to bring discredit to the banking sector and increase lack of confidence in the sector. If banks as big as Oceanic and Intercontinental are declared ‘not healthy’, then I am sure most people would not even want to deposit their hard earned money in the banks. Lamido Sanusi on assumption of duties as the CBN said he wanted foreign investors to take over some banks. Obviously, with the current trend, no investor will want to invest right now. This same Lamido recently said he does not need foreign investors (am sure after realizing his error) I hope he is not confused.

No body should get me wrong. I am not saying that the affected banks are healthy or not healthy. What I am insinuating is that the situation would have been managed away from public attention. In so doing there will still be much confidence in the banking sector while books and bad loans are being regularized and recovered respectively. This is where I think Soludo is a lot better than Sanusi. Soludo managed situations better without exposing banks.

Lamido Sanusi removed 5 MD’s without even giving them a chance to explain a single thing meanwhile he gave some other banks time to regularize their books. This does not sound like a fair playing ground but one that has an undertone of revenge or ‘beef’ for some banks MD. I feel so sad for Madam Cecilia in particular. Despite growing a bank virtually from scratch and providing jobs for lots of Nigerian (including many 9ralanders)one short bowed tied dumb backside is removing her without any true real justification and without following due processes.I wonder who actually removes MD’s? Board of directors, shareholders or a bowed tied man? i believe in the law of karma. Sooner or later RAM-ido AAS-nusi will be brought to book in similar fashion to Ribadu, El-Rufai and Tafa.

I thought we had moved on from these faulty arguments?
He sacked them based on the powers conferred on him by the constitution.
the cases are in court,so i wonder what you mean by lack of due process.
No one resigns in Nigeria, so having a tea party for them to defend themselves would have been counter productive as all it would have done is give them time to cook the books some more.
He needed to act swiftly and decisively.
you talk about Oceanic and Intercontinental being 'big' banks.This bigness is a product of banking gangsterism and cooked book.
Why are you feeling sad for Mrs Ibru?It is obvious to any sane mind that if banking is practised in this clime the way it ought to, that madam has no business being a branch manager in any serious bank.besides, she over reached herself, wrecked her bank and Sanusi is not a party to her alleged crooked and faulty decisions.
If Sanusi was as vengeful as they claim, Tony Elumelu would have been the one on the run and not Pastor Akingbola.
I am no fan of Sanusi and i have noted view that he does not possess the tact and silence needed to function as a reserve bank governor.
Just like Soludo,he seems to love publicity,although he is no match for Soludo in that regard.The man was a showbiz impressario.always in the papers and tv.

on behalf of a friend;
he gave her a child after 7 years of childlessness.
even IVF failed and all hope was almost lost.

He gave me a miracle, certified by medical science and i have a proof in form of a medical certificate to that effect.
Secondly he proved faithful and rescued my soul and life when the devil seemed to be at the wheel and racing my life on a high speed to destruction.
Most of all, he did not abandon me to my own devices.

Sagamite:
@mbulela

You can't dictate if a man should support his son or not.

The man has done all he can do:

- Dissuade the son and acted firmly and overtly when he did not heed by disowning him.

- He informed authorities to be aware of the potential danger the boy poses. It is their fault for giving him visa after that.

sag, i still think he could have done more.
Deprived of funds, he would have found it difficult (not impossible) to perpetuate his acts.
if he was put in ABU or UniMaid, it would be difficult for him to function.
The father's acts seemed half hearted in my view.

GettysBurg:
@ sagamite,

I thought you were made of finer stuff!  

Do you know that, to a lunatic, every normal man is  lunatic? Don't keep calling everyone that opposes names. I've seen u do that 5 times on this thread.

Anyway, i can authoritatively say now that the US govt has begun to beam serious searchlights on SANUSI, and his possible links to the whole saga.

There is report of impending pressure on the presidency to 'look in' on Sanusi.

More on this later.

on account of the above statements, i bow out o this thread.
this is insanely ludicrous.