By Peter Egwuatu

The recent nationalization of three banks by the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) seem not to be over and has taken another twist as other set of shareholders groups continued to ask the court to void the recent action of the apex bank.

Specifically, the shareholders under the aegis of Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria (PSAN) and Cole Alexander, representing themselves and some other shareholders of the defunct Afribank Nigeria Plc and Spring Bank Plc, last week asked a federal high court sitting in Lagos to void the recent nationalized banks and return them to their former owners.

The three nationalized banks are : Afribank Nigeria Plc, (now MainStreet Bank Limited), Bank PHB Plc (now Keystone Bank Limited) and Spring Bank Plc (now Enterprise Bank Limited).

In the court affidavit obtained by Vanguard, the Chairman of PSAN and Ist plaintiff in the suit, Mr. Boniface Okezie is praying the court to determine whether the CBN has the right to nationalized the banks without compensating the owners.

Joining in the suit are Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Afribank Nigeria Plc, Bank PHB Plc, Spring Bank Plc, Mainstreet Bank Limited, Keystone Bank Limited, Enterprise Bank Limited and Ministry of Finance.

According to Okezie, “ SEC and NSE which have the responsibility to protect the investment of the plaintiffs according to law maliciously refused or failed to object to the measures but rather gave support to them by delisting the shares of the 9th -11th defendants without regard to the interest of plaintiffs.

I am aware that it is these assets (including both moveable and immovable property), businesses and operations which purportedly have been seized through exercise of official power that give financial value to the shares of the plaintiffs so that the act of the 4th -6th defendants have stripped the shares of their financial value. I am also aware that in the event of liquidation the plaintiffs have residual interest in having these assets distributed to them after payment of lawful debts and claims.”

He further noted that many of the shareholders on the 9th and 10th defendants as contained in the affidavit submitted to the court were people, who had invested their precious savings, gratuity and pension payments to purchase those shares in response to the advertisements made by the banks in furtherance of the said policy of CBN.

According to him, “ When CBN governor attempted to manipulate these shareholders into approving his scheme of transferring majority ownership in the banks to his approved or favored third party interests, the CBN governor claimed that with the intervention of AMCON which bought over the bad loans of the banks the money of the depositors of the banks was then safe (meaning the interest of depositors in the banks was secure) and that his attention had then shifted to securing some value for the shareholder and that was the reason he was arranging to have them surrender their majority stakes to his proposed interests. I was at this meeting which was reported in a news story of a national daily.

I have attached a copy of the story as Exhibit F.”