Some top bankers are leaving their comfortable positions and perks for politics. Why the drift from certainty to uncertainty?

BY Emmanuel Aziken,  Political Editor

MInutes after leading the top management of Diamond Bank plc through its quarterly strategic session last Friday, Dr. Alex Otti resigned from his job as managing director of the bank that is ranked between fifth and sixth in the Nigerian market.

It was a shocking decision for many of his associates in the industry. He left a job that as at present has only 20 places in the market place in the country. It was more shocking to many when they heard that the former banker was delving straight into politics with an ambition to become the gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Abia State. Remarkably, Otti is not the only one leaving certainty for uncertainty.

Certainty for uncertainty

Interestingly, one of his chief rivals for the PDP gubernatorial ticket in Abia is also a former top banker, Mr. Marc Wabara. Though Wabara’s exit from top flight banking was not as eventful as Otti’s, he still counts as part of his curriculum vitae, the fact that he was at a time managing director of a bank, the defunct Hallmark Bank.

Alex Otti: left Diamond Bank

Another top flight banker who bit the bug earlier was Mr. Udom Emmanuel, the former executive director Zenith Bank, who shocked many last year when he left his top job to take up the position of Secretary to the State Government, SSG in Akwa Ibom State. Mr. Emmanuel penultimate Monday also exited the SSG job, and the following day before an unprecedented crowd at the Uyo Township Stadium, declared his intention to vie for the governorship of Akwa Ibom. He is generally believed to be in pole position given what is generally believed to be the full gift to him of the political machine of the outgoing governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio.

Of the trio of Otti, Wabara and Emmanuel, the prospects for Emmanuel could easily be seen as the most viable given the unqualified support he has gotten from Akpabio. Given that the PDP’s National Working Committee, NWC barred state party officials and executive office holders from openly supporting aspirants, Akpabio was absent at Emmanuel’s declaration, but the aura of his presence was all about especially in the presence of his wife, Mrs. Ekaette Akpabio who praised Emmanuel for being about the brightest of the children of Akpabio.

It is indeed tempting to ask what is driving the bank bosses from the executive floor of their multi-trillion naira establishments to the rough terrain of politics.

Dr. Otti in his first session with journalists hours after he tendered his resignation last Friday described his venture as the movement from certainty to uncertainty. It is especially so for him. After moving Diamond Bank from about the 14th position in the sector to among the top six, and with a contract of six years still in front of him, his ambition would in the consideration of some look illogical. But beyond Dr. Otti’s moves is a philosophical drive for self realisation which he claimed could only be fulfilled in serving his community.

•Udom said bye to Zenith Bank

Emmanuel as an executive director of Zenith Bank oversaw the international operations of the bank and could at a moment’s notice fly first class to any country he liked and in between have his fun. But he gave away all that for the lure of politics, or in his words, to serve his people. The inclination of the former bankers is bound to arouse the kind of mudsling that politicians normally throw at one another. Even before he entered the fray, Otti was already receiving his own dose with questions about his origin in Abia.

For Wabara, Otti and Emmanuel, three tested bankers who have navigated through many plots and pot-shots to get to the zenith of the banking profession, they may as well be armed with enough battle scares that may even frighten some well established politicians.

Whereas politicians throw their barbs in crude forms, bankers throw their arrows in more refined manners in such garbs as de-marketing and other board room manouvers.