By Rotimi Fasan
THERE is something about the new Central Bank Governor, Lamido Sanusi, that reminds me of the former Chairman of the EFCC, Nuhu Ribadu. First there is that physical resemblance, a lanky, almost austere frame. They both look fragile and do not cut the burly picture of your typical Nigerian executive.
For a police officer, a hard-biting one at that, Ribadu looks fit, if a trifle like an ascetic- a monk or something like that. Sanusi also looks the very picture of activity- trim, fit and athletic. But for a bank executive, particularly Nigeria’s apex bank, Sanusi couldn’t look “hungrier”.
And I won’t be surprised if some begin to interpret some of his recent decisions in terms of his dislike of comfort. The thieving tribe that pass for company executives in Nigeria look like overfed gorillas and measure their fitness (the very sign of good living, they say) in terms of their rhinoceros necks and elephantine waistlines. And so the likes of Ribadu and Sanusi are virtual misfits in the class of the well-to-do.
Yet, beyond the shared physical attributes between Ribadu and Sanusi is the more fundamental resemblance of emotional gravitas, courage and boldness. I cannot, for now, tell if Sanusi also shares Ribadu’s parrot-like volubility. But one would not be far off the mark to say that he is someone not afraid to bare his mind.
We saw this during his screening for his present post, when he nearly knocked the bottom off the misconceived Seven-Point Agenda of his would-be employers, the Yar’Adua government. He had advised them to prune down the unwieldy baggage to a manageable size of one or two goals. Others would have thought first of protecting their back.
Right or wrong, he seemed to know his stuff and has the right passion for it. It was that passion that saw him warning it was no longer going to be business as usual in the banking industry.
We might be seeing the direction he wants to go with the manner he axed five bank executives, several of whom were already seasoned bankers at a time when Sanusi was yet groping his way up the banking ladder. But in serving the Nigerian people, longevity cannot and should not be equated with efficiency or productivity, much less transparency.
And so it was that he took the axe to Intercontinental Bank Plc, Oceanic International Bank Plc, FinBank Plc, Afribank Plc and Union Bank Plc, cutting in one fell swoop the chief executives of these banks and their executive boards for engaging in practices likely to bring ruin to the Nigerian economy.
All of this in that same sector that Chukwuma Soludo, erstwhile Governor of the Central Bank, told us was immune from the “global financial meltdown”. Like the Titanic, our banks and by extension, our economy, was given a clean bill of health and declared “unsinkable”.
In retrospect, it is clear we were not being told the whole truth. Disclosures were neither full nor honest. The irony now is that as the rest of the world begins to inch their way out of recession, our economy is showing signs of going into a coma.
This came about as a consequence of the lack of transparency, the gross failure of governance and incestuous relations between bank executives and their organisations. Only a sadist wouldn’t see that something had to be done about the excesses in the banking sector.
Hard-earned depositors’ funds were at risk. The voodoo practices that go for banking, a situation in which banks continue to declare huge profits where manufacturers and other services sectors of the economy have gone aground, should be cause for concern.
But regulators of the economy seemed to have gone to sleep, turning a blind eye to the unacceptable activities in the sector.
The banks have long ago abandoned their core service areas to join the gravy train of making quick bucks in the stock market, financing margin traders and other speculators in the downstream sector of the energy industry.
Their dangerous and unnecessary exposure fuelled by greed and an unscrupulous instinct to live above their compatriots hugely exposed them to grave risks that are now threatening to bring the house down on everybody. Four hundred billion Naira of tax payers’ money is no child’s play.
The same people who were responsible for this danger, making loud claims of demarketing by competitors, have no justification to expect to manage the huge funds that is being injected to rescue the banks.
It requires the courage of a leader, much more the knowledge of a risk manager like Sanusi, to take the decisions that had to be taken to make things right. Nigerians have a way of reading and misreading meanings into every action, including the latest by Sanusi which some are speculating is directed at certain persons and regions in the country.
If people from certain regions are responsible for the threat to our economy they should bear the consequences of their unconscionable acts. I am blind, deaf and dumb to the attempt to couch Sanusi’s action in ethnic terms. Happily he has, himself, described himself as not just a detribalised but an “untribalised” Nigerian.
There is nothing to suggest that he is not. He should be allowed to carry out his brief in good conscience. This is no time for any “selective justice” argument as some said of Ribadu even when those he was said to have singled out for prosecution for corrupt conduct couldn’t swear they were innocent.
At least one or two of the affected bank executives make bold profession of their faith and they couldn’t have forgotten too soon what the holy book says about unproductive branches: they should be cut and set alight! But not only were some of these executives not productive, they were negligent, and criminally so. They should, therefore, go.
Truth has a way of always taking the front seat irrespective of our collective denial over time. Sanusi ride on yooo! We are behind you in prayers.
I am disappointed in the way and manner Sanusi is going about this.He should have solved the problem in a manner that will not erode the had earned confidence people have with Nigerian Banks in Africa and Nigeria.Why set a house on fire in a bid to save the house?He should have systematically edged the Bank chiefs out without offering any form of press statement that triggered all this Panic withdrawals in those banks.He should have known that ours is largely an illiterate society.No body wnats to understand your second expalanations.Debtors to First Bank alone are bigger than most banks, publish those owing non performing loans in fIRST bANK Too.Was it not First Bank that powered econet that failed. Have they gooten back their monies from them.They just want to capitalise on the unprofessionalism of the leadership of those five Banks to Kill the Banks. The target is to kill those banks especially intercontinental and oceanic so that they cant compete with first Bank without knowing that your are killing the banking industry in Nigeria. Most Foreing Banks have started withdrawing their Credit Lines from Nigerian Banks. Look at the fears and tension created while this could have being settled without creating all these tension.The Bank Chiefs could have being removed, the debtors arrested or atleast made to pay by EFCC for all loans that are non perfoming or granted without appropriate collateral.Soludo was handling this problem better….and if left he could have solved it better without creating this shame on Nigeria.
The least the writer of this column could have done was to be polite in his language.i’lld vote him as judge and jury with neither a court nor concrete evidence.pls the cbn should award him vulgar journalist and praise singer of Lamido Sanusi of the day.
the banks were all over CNN–advertising nothing–but our failed systems- with hard currency-instead of looking inward-s-let us know how some governors were also tricked into obtaining loans from the banks such as Sylva of Bayelsa state–Amaechi and co–for now my plea is publish the names–was Sulodo part of the problem–me thinks so oooooh
Ribadu done nothing special. He cannot sworn that he didn’t theif, forgot him and let him go his own way. the noses about ribadu does not worth it at all
sanusi is trying to do something new which his predessors did not do. but he should be careful not not to step into powerful toes otherwise he would found himself where he will be be comfortable with like the Ribadus and El Rufai
Here we come again. It was “Selective justice” by Ribadu and now it is “northern agenda” by Sanusi. When shall we concertedly call the spade a spade? Let’s for once detribalise important economic issues and see if we can join other nations in getting out of recession.
It has become obvious that even the ordinary bankers are living far above their means and earnings, let alone their executives. With posh cars, private jets, properties in choice locations, home and abroad, a galaxy of wives and office mistresses and their exortic life styles, it takes only fools not to wonder if depositors’ funds are not being misappropriated. I will not forget in a hurry how Soludo, a technocrat I portrayed as the hope of “the new nigeria” to my cynical fellow diasporans, shielded the true “health status” of the banking sector. To him, the “fundamental were robust”. So most of us abroad repatriated our hard earned money home.How could we have thought otherwise when he was in charge and had our vote of confidence by dint of his “magical consolidation”. We “failed to shine our eyes”.
Whatever Sanusi or Yar’ Adua’s agenda might be we must let the debtors prove the veracity or otherwise of their indebtedness by paying up or drag CBN to court for libel.
Sanusi, may the fire in your elbow glow even hotter and brighter to unravel more fraudsters masquerading as businessmen with depositors’ funds.
I think the problem with the writer and other Sanusi praise singer is that they seem to be easily impressed with populist action – ‘playing to the gallery’ as it were. The banking being at the heart of the nations economy deserve to be treated with all sensitivities it deserves.
Having worked worked in the Industry until 1995, i will be the first to say that all is not well with the industry, including the Central Bank. The need for reform should not however be at the expense of rule of law and fair play.
I would have expected the CBN to:
1. Complete the audit of all the banks,
2. Give the banks opportunity to defend themselves
3. Get it facts and figures right
4. Have a solid plan on how to proceed with the reform – Sacking the affected banks’ directorate is the easiest of the actions needed to sanitise the industry.
Criminalising genuine commercial activities in not the way to go. Bringing EFCC to harrass people is also counter productive. I would hate to be in a position of people who had advanced loans in good faith only to be called crooks by people who had no clue of how the transactions came about.
We Nigerians should learn to do things the right way, good intentions are not enough.
This process actually put into question Sanusi’s pedigree as a risk manager. He seems to have forgotten a lot of things about risk management in his actions. You do not ’set a house on fire on order to save it’.
I do not buy the conspiracy theories that people are talking about. But i strongly question the competence of the people involved and the thought process that went into the decision making.
Lamido has job to do and he has sent an unmistaken message that he would diligently perform the onerous tasks entrusted upon him by the country. It is customary in Nigeria for the guilty ones and those that have hijack the country to quickly read meanings into any patriotic steps that restores sanity into our polity by injecting tribal motives into it.
It is only in Nigeria that that chief executives of banks with fiduciary responsibilities of depositors and creditors funds abandoned professionalism and ethics with fiat in order to favor their cronies. The complete departure from professionalism to me was largely informed by corruptions because these chief executives benefited handsomely in these unwholesome transactions. Lending outside of the permitted limits by law is unprofessional and criminal and Sanusi did the right thing by sweeping these shameless people out with a broom of sanitization. Nigerian depositors would be better off for this singular act. It is therefore proper to replace them before public fund is injected into these banks, so that they can perform their functions properly and efficiently.
Lamido like Nuhu Ribadu exhibits uncompromising traits, which the guilty ones do not fancy. My hope is that Nigerians will not treat Lamido the way Nuhu was treated because we collectively allowed Ribadu to be roasted while we looked the other way. May God give us brave men and women at the auspicious times.