By Babajide Komolafe

Enquiries from official and unofficial quarters on the way forward on the plight of the depositors of Savannah Bank revealed two things. The first is that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is for now not willing to take on the owners of Savannah Bank in terms of setting or insisting on a deadline for reopening of the bank.

According to a top official of the apex bank who spoke on condition of anonymity, the CBN does not want to do anything that would be interpreted as contempt of the court order that restored the license of Savannah Bank.

The official said that the CBN and Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) had put in place arrangement to pay depositors of the bank but the court order nullified the arrangement.

He said the CBN is aware of the plight of the depositors of the bank but cannot take any action for now to ameliorate their suffering. The second revelation which is also a fall out from the above is that, the depositors of Savannah Bank can prompt a change in the situation by taking action. For example, the depositors can approach the Bank Customer Association of Nigeria (BCAN) for advice and assistance to engage with the CBN and owners of the Savannah Bank.

According to President of the Association, Dr. Uju Ogubunka, BCAN is ready to provide assistance to depositors of Savannah Bank but there must be a formal approach from them. This means that the depositors of the bank must have somebody or people to represent them and make a formal request to BCAN.

While not pre-empting the kind of assistance that BCAN can provide to depositors of the bank, it is becoming clear that a legal action instituted by depositors of bank is inevitable. This inevitability is highlighted by an online reader, Milo Savage, in his response to second part of the article titled, “What should depositors of Savannah Bank do?

He said, “What one lawyer needs to do is to file class action suit on behalf of the aggrieved (depositors) irrespective of where they are. He or she needs to publish it in the newspaper, broadcast in radio and TV. The case is already half cooked because the court have ruled that CBN is guilty. The class action lawyer will ask for punitive damages in trillions naira for all parties but he has to break the case up in two orders, owners and depositors.

He must also lunch public campaign on why it is very important for the court to act so as to set the right business environment for Nigeria”. Definitely there should be lawyers among the millions of the depositors of Savannah Bank who should be willing to take up the campaign on behalf of the other depositors.

Even in the absence of such lawyer, there should be depositors who should be willing to mobilise or represent other depositors either to approach BCAN or engage a lawyer that would institute the necessary legal action. Such depositors can contact Vanguard Investors Forum via [email protected] for partnership to engage BCAN or for publicity to mobilise other depositors.