By HENRY UMORU & INALEGWU SHAIBU
ABUJA—GOVERNOR of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Malam  Lamido Sanusi, Wednesday, appeared before the Senate with a plea for it to consider the request to increase the contribution of the Federal Government to the Asset Management Company of Nigeria, AMCON, to N500 billion.

Answering questions from Senators, Wednesday, during the interactive session with the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions, Sanusi, who boasted that he had no regrets in his banking reforms and protecting depositors, said his job is to protect depositors, especially on the recent recapitalisation in the banking sector and not the shareholders.

Sanusi said he was not under obligation to return anything to shareholders of failed banks, adding that he was glad that they are not happy with him.

He said what he did was done to protect depositors as he was appointed by government to protect them.

The CBN governor, who lamented that the bill which was forwarded to the parliament that seeks to increase the amount was thrown out by the House of Representatives, said, ‘’CBN will contribute N500 billion according to the bill which is before the Senate. It is unfortunate that we could not meet with the House of Representatives before the amendment bill was thrown out.

”I appeal to you to take the amendment because we have an agreement with the banks. And, many of them were not involved in the problem that led to the situation we see now. We are pleading that we have agreement and if we renege, it will not be good.It is my job to protect depositors,” he added.

If you go and buy shares, you are taking a risk. The bank paid dividends, you took the dividends. Share price went up, you sold and tripled your money. Those that sold made money. Those that didn’t sell lost, it is a risk you took.

‘’The depositor did not go to loose money. We told them don’t put your money in the pillow, go and put in the bank. He expects to get that money on demand, my obligation is to make sure that every depositor gets his money. I have no obligation to the shareholders. It is not my job.

I am serving depositors. ‘’Shareholders are not happy with me. I understand that and I accept it. I am happy that they are not happy because that means that I am doing my work.”

Speaking on the Non-interest banking, the Central Bank governor who noted that he was surprised that the concept was being misconstrued and generating some criticisms, said that he was ready to approve for the take off of any non-interest banking in Nigeria that is operated elsewhere, adding that the CBN will study the guidelines, just as he stressed that he was not prepared to join issues with religious leaders on their position relating to the Non-interest banking.

Lamido who noted that Islamic banking is now a product globally, however reiterated that non-interest banking just introduced in the country is in the interest of the country not a particular religion.

On why he did not wait for the deadline to elapse before he took over the banks, the CBN governor said, ‘’If you go back to the Newspapers, when I set the deadline for September 30, everybody said it was not possible, how did we fight back, we had realised that in many cases, this would have been concluded earlier, some people were playing game, you are a shareholder, you appoint a board and management, your management throws away bank assets, giving bad loans and loosing the money, we seized the bank, we find your partner by going to Court to take all sorts of injunctions.

‘’I am not talking about the obligation, you know we said in 2009 that the reason the management of Banks, we all know the chain, we can only talk about the things that have been decided in Court, we know the chain of a CEO from whom we have recovered about 200 pieces of real Estate in the United Arab Emirate plus property in America, plus property in South Africa, where were the shareholders when over 300 billion naira of depositors funds were being stolen, these are the shareholders that we are talking about, where were they, now we come and save the Institution and shareholders are talking about their rights, not about the right of the depositors.

‘’When you take a decision at the Macro economic level, you cannot guarantee that the micro unit will be equally affected. If I want to fight inflation and I freeze liquidity and raise interest rate, you interest and you personal mortgage will go up; you will not be happy, those people may even default and the banks will take possession of your property.

‘’But what is the option, Iam looking at banking, it is possible that there would have been a miracle, miracles happen in the Bible and the Koran, we hear about Miracles, but we don’t see them, it is only reported by somebody who is there, it could have been nice if the miracle had happened much earlier. What happened in two years may not have happened, it is not likely to happen in another one year.

‘’If we had gotten to September and the market knew the Central Bank had announced a deadline and you know this is deadline that cannot a deadline without taking action. At that we knew that five of them were clearly on their way to liquidation, but the market didn’t know that.”

The chairman of the committee, Senator Ayo Adeseun while responding said that the essence of the interactive session was to enable them see that the banking sector remained focused.