“There are more banks than bankers”
“All too often, if you could put a chief executive under sodium pentothal and dig into the rationale behind his acquisitions, you’d find he was inspired by his yearning to move up a few places in the Fortune list (Top bank lists, in this case) of the 500 largest companies (in the world), not by concern for the value per share of his company. Many companies, including banks, are run into the ground because the president is concerned with size rather than quality: he becomes hypnotized by his company’s rank in terms of gross size”
The above quote by one of the most respected and admired investors cum richest men in America, Warren Buffet, effectively describes the mindset and mentality of the average Chief executive around the world; Misplaced ego and misguided drive to attain desired heights, at any cost.
This same ego and drive crept into the Nigerian banks like a thief in the night and caused uproar when the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced the sack of the five Managing Directors of the five banks.
A lot of view points have been stated across a large number of media. Some say there are enough prove that there was a Northern agenda attached to the whole process, others say it was pure witch hunting, some even said it was a personal war involving former rivals in the banking industry. On the other hand there are those who opine that it was a welcome development.
Without attempting to take sides with any of the popular school of thought regarding this issue, this write up attempts to highlight a number of significant perspective which is expected to allow readers to make an informed decision as regard this contentious issue.
First, without any form of doubt, it is an anomaly for a head teacher of a class of 24 students to assess and grade only 10 of the students, release the results which reveals that only five students passed while the other five students failed. Perhaps, in this case the Governor of the central bank, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi had seen trouble looming and was eager to stem the problem, that he forgot to apply basic reasoning and threw caution in the wind by announcing the sack of the bank’s chiefs. While trying to explain the rationale behind this decision, Sanusi Lamido said ‘I will say it is like a doctor; you go to a village and they tell you there is cholera in the village and you want to do the test. Obviously, you will start with the children that show the symptom in the highest degree because they are the ones at high risk’. Good assessment, but then a better one as a medical doctor will be to assume that the fact that some children show the symptom in the highest degree and also tested positive to the tests does not conclude that there aren’t more children with even greater tendencies and level of infection to the outbreak. Also, the way and, manner that the EFCC has decided to go about this issue is worrisome, to say the least. According to the law, an accused is assumed innocent until proven otherwise. The type approach taken by the EFCC paints the picture of an attempt to soil the names and integrity of the involved persons, while trying to ensure that they and their cronies go down with them. An attempt to force a pill of deceit into the throat of Nigerians, and side step us all into believing that ‘the thieves’ have been caught. But we all know that ‘thieves’ may have been caught but ‘the thieves’ have certainly not been caught. There are still a good number of Bank chiefs who perhaps have more skeletons in their wardrobe.
Secondly, this revelation was an opportunity for us all to have a good insight into the happenings in the banking industry. Cecilia Ibru of Oceanic bank, Erastus Akingbola of Intercontinental bank, Bartholomew Ebong of Union bank Plc, Sebastian Adigwe of Afribank Plc, and Okey Nwosu of Finbank. And in my opinion the list is endless. The present exercise is only a sneak preview into a classical motion picture, directed, produced and starring Nigerian bankers. One which can compete at the biggest stage of film awards globally. At this stage, the most important decision is not whether they are all caught but that they are duly punished according to the law (whether this will ever happen is another topic for another day). It is just not enough to charge them to court (as if this is the first time that high profiled embezzlement has been handled) and pronounce ridiculous judgments which will only men that they virtually go scot free. It is about time we had set an example and prove to the world (and Mrs. Hilary Clinton) that this administration is indeed ready to take a hard stand against corruption in high places.
There appears to be several factors which will determine the outcome of this charade, the most important one in my opinion is a smoke screen which will act as an effective cover of the current situation. In clearer terms, a big news which can serve as an editors delight and appear on headlines across newspapers nationwide. The death of Chief Gani Fawehinmi, the Senior Advocate of the Masses, will serve as the perfect smoke screen. As it stands, Nigerians are still mourning his death and only time will tell if we will ever remember that there are pending questions for the bank executives, their cronies and others whose scandalous banking practices are yet to be exposed, to provide answers to. Even if , and when the media attempts to make concerted efforts to ensure that the story does not go underground, those who understand the relationship between news and psychology will know no matter the effort on the part of the media, the general consensus, especially in a country as ours will be.
For those who mourn him after his death, I plead that we allow the Sage of Modern Nigerian Struggle rest. He will turn in his grave, nod with pity upon the country that his creator deliberately allowed him to be born of, and wish that we (Leaders and Followers alike) could all decide to effect the change that he always hoped he could lead Nigeria unto. I wished he we all had an opportunity to hear what he had to say about this issue, perhaps he would have sued the chiefs of the banks for manipulating their account statement and deceiving Nigerians into believing that all is well; sued the CBN for failing to detect the incongruity earlier to avoid this embarrassing situation; and finally the federal government for failing to protect the people of the territorial boundary known as Nigeria: its primary function as dictated by the constitution of the nation. Indeed it would have been an attention-grabbing comment.
In the end the appropriate caption of this sham will be the famous saying by Morris Shapiro: “There are more banks than bankers”.
