By Dele Sobowale
LAST week, the first part of this series ended abruptly at a point which would  make continuation from that point this week confusing to readers. So permit me to start the 2009 article from the beginning once again. Thank you.

BANKING CRISIS; THE ROAD TO HELL —1

DELE SOBOWALE

“Every great enterprise starts with enthusiasm for an exalted aim and ends up bogged down in petty politics”.

Charles Peguy, 1873-1914

(VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS   p.49).

Perhaps most Nigerians also need to be reminded that “the road to hell is often paved with good intentions”. With bank consolidation, we started as usual with the greatest enthusiasm mixed with a good dose of good intentions and we have landed right in hell. Was it predictable? Was it avoidable? It is too early to tell. But, let us return to memory lane.

From Left; Comrade Adams Oshiomhole,Former Governor of Edo State;Dr Kayode Fayemi,Hon Minister,Solid Minerals Development;Prof Charles Soludo,Former CBN Governor/Keynote Speaker;Mr Muda Yusuf, Director General LCCI; Mr Bismarck Rewane, MD Financial Derivations Company ltd;Dr Alex Otti, former GMD Diamond Bank;Mr Issa Aremu,NEC Member,NLC & General Secretary,NUTGTWN and Dr Obadiah Mailafia, former Deputy Governor CBN at the Vanguard Economic Discourse with the Theme;The Hard Facts to Rescue The Nigeria Economy held at Civic centre Victoria Island Lagos yesterday. PHOTO;AKEEM SALAU

In July of this year, writing in my weekly column, Frankly Speaking, this statement was made with all the certainty of a prophet Isaiah. “By the time the real story of banks had become unraveled, because they are still deliberately shrouded in mystery by the banks and the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, rest assured there will be a lot of blood on the floor”. That was in part one of the three part series. Part three focused on Oceanic Bank which had published its Annual Report and Accounts and had announced provisions for doubtful debts of N24.5 billion; UBA shoveled in N21 billion; BankPHB threw in N16 billion. By the time the week ended, over N116 billion had been declared in jeopardy by just five banks. That was more capital than the share capital of 40 banks on the eve of consolidation and we have not reached the bottom yet.”

Soludo in his presentation reminded the listeners at the VANGUARD FORUM on March 10, 2017,   about the positive results of his efforts as CBN Governor. But, like the brilliant surgeon who carried out an amazing operation, he did not finish the narrative. He failed to tell the audience that “the patient died”. The banking sector Sanusi inherited from Soludo was on its death bed and had to be rescued by burying some of its members – Oceanic, Intercontinental, BankPHB etc. Trillions of naira of Nigerian and foreign funds went down the drain with the banks and consolidation forever.

Now does that mean that Soludo was guilty of corruptly enriching two banks two days before devaluation as charged by Oshiomhole? Wait for the verdict, but first let us interrogate the accuser.

In any court of law, the first order of business once a witness is called is to establish whether or not his testimony will be reliable; that he will tell the truth. Using that as basis for examining the former Governor and former NLC leader one can deduce a few things from two episodes in his career as Labour leader and Governor.

Readers should go and check and they will discover that from 1999, when Obasanjo was President to 2009 when Yar’Adua stopped functioning as President, the price of petrol went from N22 per litre to N73 per litre. Oshiomhole called at least five strikes which were only effective in Lagos and Abuja. Despite the charade of strikes petrol prices went up. But, Oshiomhole was branded as a hero. The print media especially built a monument to all the battles NLC lost. How was it possible? Oshionhole simply pocketed all the journalists on the Labour desks of every leading paper. They were sponsored to international conferences and paid excellent estacode. They represented him on their papers and he could do no wrong. The Nigerian consumer got an increase each and every time.

During the last year of Oshionhole’s second term as Governor of Edo State, a controversy developed between Oshiomhole and Lucky Igbiniedon regarding a cement plant in an Edo North community. It was started, but not completed, by Igbiniedon. Even Professor Osubor fid not touch it in his brief stay in office. Several issues were in contention between the two, now, ex-Governors about this abandoned project. But, one caught my personal attention. Igbiniedon claimed that the cement plant, which would have provided close to 5,000 direct and about 10,000 indirect jobs was close to seventy-five per cent completed. Oshimhole asserted that “there was very little on ground”. Obviously, it would amount to almost criminal neglect for any governor to abandon a project on which more than N10 billion of state funds had been spent – even if he was not the originator. It would also be unwise to return to “nothing” more than seven years after it was closed. That called for media intervention. It was our duty to find out the truth about the plant and I took up the challenge. Today, there are loads of pictures from my visit to the cement plant. Anyone interested will however have to pay for six pages of advertisements to have all the pictures published. What I saw might not be up to 75 per cent completed; but, it was so far advanced from nothing and should not have been abandoned.

That brings us to Oshiomhole’s charge against Soludo. A “couple of million dollars were allocated to two generation banks two days before devaluation”. The banks, the audience was told were enriched to the tune of N8 billion naira. It was not clear if the two banks received N2 million in total or each of them went home with $2 million. The participants were alarmed; Soludo was sweating – disgraced.

Some of those around me uttered maledictions and curses against the former CBN Governor. I calmly took out my calculator. And the gadget told me that the banks must have collected their “gift” from Soludo at N4000 per dollar at a time when the black market exchange rate was less than N160/US$1. Instead of benefiting them, Soludo must have swindled them.

To be continued…