“You burn the house to roast the pig. It was the only way mankind always roasted pigs.” Saul Bellow, 1915-2005.
President Tinubu appointed a Special Investigator. Mr Jim Obaze is turning out to be more of an Inquisitor than a detached fact-finding inquirer.
Before those already gullible enough to swallow everything he has published assume that I have been settled, let me state upfront that I have met only two victims of Obaze’s assault on their right to presumption of innocence.
I met Emefiele only once and the meeting lasted less than thirty minutes. No money exchanged hands.
I also met Lemo at a workshop years ago – while he was still Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. We shook hands, uttered the usual pleasantries and moved on. Again, no money changed hands.
I have been critical of the CBN every time the bank had committed blunders since Ahmed was the Governor under Buhari.
I am still waging a one-man war against Cardoso with regard to cash scarcity – which will not end soon; if the CBN continues along its current track.
The bank will lose and create more problems for all of us.
Mr Obaze might not realise or intend it, but, one certain consequence of his approach to his vital task is the demolition of the three banks – Titan, Keystone and Polaris – and serious collateral damage to other banks, Nigerian and non-Nigerian, as well.
The nation runs this major risk because the Investigator has become the accuser, the prosecutor, the judge and the gaoler – all rolled into one.
He has violated all the time-honoured rules of fairness to all concerned; and he now apparently, has judged the cases, and there are hundreds of them, and has found the accused guilty as charged before submitting the Report officially to the President and before anybody has been charged to court.
He has even pronounced judgment and punishment. The three banks are to be taken over by the Federal Government – apparently without regard to the rights of other stakeholders eg AFREXIM Bank.
Obaze’s contempt for the rule of law fits in with nations like North Korea and Afghanistan, but, they don’t conform to Nigerian laws and constitution.
Tinubu will be well advised to rein in the “bull in a China shop” he appointed to carry out a very important and unprecedented assignment.
Certainly, this is a task that must be done thoroughly and with soberness and maturity.
Apart from unravelling crimes that might have been committed and culprits punished, it is obvious that our laws and parts of our constitution must be reviewed to reduce the powers of the President and the CBN Governor – in order to prevent a repetition of whatever happened under Buhari.
Last week, in a related article, I pointed out two aspects of the Report which appear dodgy to me; and, which cast a great deal of doubt on the rest.
The first was the issue of 593 illegal accounts opened in three countries – US, UK and China.
The second was the allegation that Buhari did not authorise the currency re-design.
As I pointed out last week, there are media records indicating that Buhari was very much aware of the currency re-design. Those with any sort of memory would recall that that the former Minister of Finance, had voiced her objections to the fact that she had been kept in the dark about the change and the approval by Buhari.
She felt, wrongly it might be added, that as the supervising Minister, she was entitled to be consulted before Buhari approved the change.
I actually felt that given two security reasons why Buhari agreed to the change, three elements were essential to the success of its initial – secrecy, surprise and speed.
Every Ministry is a leaky receptacle for such information. My only objection was in connection with the deadline for change over.
We all remember the heavy publicity that was mounted to introduce the new bills. Buhari received samples months before anyone else.
So, how on Earth can anyone convince us that he did not approve the change?
The allegation that 593 accounts were opened in the US, UK and China is simply incredible; over 66 accounts per annum, 5.5 per month and more than one a week, raises the question: was the man doing anything else in CBN?
There are other shaky aspects of the Report which should caution us to pause before joining Obazee in asking the FG to take over the bank.
To begin with, the Special Investigator is not a court which can indict people and punish them.
He is supposed to make his findings available to the President who will take whatever measures he deems fit regarding the allegations.
Ordinarily, the first port of call should be the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General for the Federation, AGF, would review the Report and make appropriate legal recommendations – before anybody is being harassed and private properties being asked to be forfeited.
A bank is a particularly vulnerable organisation. Had it been a manufacturing company, the customers would probably not immediately stop patronising the products.
A bank is different. It is holding other peoples’ assets in trust that the items are safe and can be retrieved – as and when required.
Closure of the bank, as a prelude to take over, creates enormous problems for millions of stakeholders.
I write about this because of the experiences of several people known to me when Savannah Bank was shut suddenly.
Businesses failed; people committed suicide; families broke up; lives were ruined. Many depositors of Savannah Bank would have acted differently – if they knew the guillotine was about to fall.
Obazee’s needless alarm might trigger an irreversible reaction which might turn out to be unjustified after all.
No Report has generated as many calls and text messages from our readers as this one since I started writing on this page in 1987.
The question everybody asks is the same: what should I do with my account(s) with the bank after this Report?
One, highly troubled individual is linked with two of the banks.
According to him, “my blood pressure is up and refuses to come down”. Thus, lives might be lost before the accused bankers have their days in court and the trillions of investment go down the drain once again.
Soludo started off with 25 consolidated banks in 2006, which we were told were immune from the global crisis of 2008. By 2009, more than half of them had disappeared; and collectively, they left over N6 trillion toxic loans which the CBN had to take over through the Assets Management Company of Nigeria, AMCON.
Other banks were responsible for a good percentage of the toxic loans each bank left for fellow Nigerians through the CBN.
That is why what Obazee has recommended, so flippantly, should constitute the very last resort; and not the first consideration.
Take-over of a bank by federal authorities invariably has consequences – usually unintended.
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