Is this Lamido Sincere?

Friday 14th August 2009, will remain indelible in Nigeria's banking history, even more fatal than Charles Soludo's consolidation project. Five of Nigeria's top MDs got disgraced from office. The hammersmith? Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

The main substance being the banks debt profile with the CBN. The banks failed the audit test and CBN shut its Expanded Discount Window (EDW) on them.

Oceanic Bank amidst the international accolades and awards owed a debt of N278 Billion and only recovered N9 Billion.
But when did bank borrowing become a crime or owing becoming a criminal offence? There must be something some of us do not know. The secret came to the fore when the hammersmith struck.

The CBN published the corporate and individual bank debtors of the banks.


Union Bank - big, strong and reliable as its pay-off goes, owed N74 Billion from which the sum of N659.2 million only has so far been retreived.

Intercontinental Bank - The happy bank owed N271 billion and has been able to recover N7.7 Billion so far.

AfriBank - on the other hand, owed N142 Billion and has recovered the sum of N7.2 Billion from its debtors.

FinBank - is owing N43 Billion and has been able to put together so far, the sum of N1.6 Billion.

Now the Big question. Are these the only banks whose heads are unfit for banking operations in Nigeria? The hammersmith's move caused a lot of badblood and lightly expressed, smacks of insincerity.

Why? The said banks operate in a window created by the CBN and serviced by the CBN. The window allows banks to borrow money at 4% interest rate, which the banks of course, lend to corporate and individual customers at higher interest rates. Some of these banks have these monies tied in investments, special mention is the case of the Union Bank which for sometime has been the best bank promoting agriculture in Nigeria. What it owes is only N74 Billion. Union bank has one of the largest number of branches in Nigeria and its folio clearly shows that it can manage itself.

No doubt in all countries especially in corrupt Nigeria, good causes do get drown. But are we saying that when a man is diagnosed of a headache - a good doctor would recommend that his head be cut-off?

We all know that the global economic meltdown has direct impact on the Banks. developed economies provided a lifeline to protect their nations. If Sanusi's grouse is not voiced or detected early enough, it portends a grave danger to Nigeria's economy.



Sanusi by his action has unwittingly called on foreign banks to quicky withdraw their investments in Nigerian banks. This will surely deepen the nation's financial crisis situation.