By Peter Egwuatu

LAGOS – Shareholders of the five banks whose Managing Directors and  Executive Directors were sacked by the Central Bank, last month, are spoiling for a showdown with their successors for taking briefings from the apex bank instead of the boards of the banks.

The shareholders, who expressed disgust with a situation where the CBN-appointed Managing Directors report their daily operations to the apex bank, are asking if the affected banks are placed under CBN’s receivership.

CBN Governor, Mr. Lamido Sanusi, has, however, stated repeatedly that the money the apex bank  injected into these banks was neither a bail out from the Federal Government nor government equity in the banks but loan facility from the CBN expanded discount window as lender of last resort.

Sanusi  had, last Wednesday, told the capital market community that the apex bank was not interested and would not interfere in the management of the five troubled banks.

Vanguard can, however, authoritatively reveal that the five banks’ Managing Directors still report to the CBN, a situation which does not go down well with the affected banks’ shareholders.

Speaking exclusively with Vanguard in Lagos, the Chairman, Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria, PSAN, Mr. Boniface Okezie, said: “after barely five weeks that CBN appointed new Managing Directors to these five banks, following alleged misuse of shareholders’ funds, they are yet to meet with other members of the board who were not sacked.

”How come these new Managing Directors cannot convene board meetings to enable them chat with the existing non-executive directors who are still members of the board?”

Speaking on behalf of other shareholders, he said, “if the CBN governor is sincere with what he said, that the apex bank does not  interfere with the management of these banks, how come the new managing directors are still reporting  to CBN instead of the board?

“I don’t see the rationale why the new Managing Directors report to CBN when there are still other members on the board of these banks.

”What operates in these banks is one-man affair and this is not supposed to be,  in an ideal situation. Let the CBN governor come out and tell us, the shareholders of these banks, whether the entire board members of these banks were sacked.

”And, if that is the case, then an Extra-Ordinary General Meeting (EGM) of these banks should have been called up so as to appoint new members who will constitute a new board pending the arrival of new investors,” he said.

The banks whose managing directors and their executive directors were sacked are: Intercontinental Bank Plc, Oceanic Bank International Plc, Union Bank Nigeria Plc, Afribank Nigeria Plc and Finbank Plc.

Meanwhile, the CBN governor, while briefing the capital market community, had  said, “we are not managing these banks. The CBN is not micro-managing these banks, and they do not report to us.

They have a board, they have a management. We are assisting them by giving them the necessary support, but they are being managed by the CEOs and they have been given all the powers to run the institutions and bring them back to where they should be.”