Date Published: 08/24/09
Sanusi Please Conclude the Clean Up of the Mess –Don’t Back Down
By Mr. Hopkins-Amachree
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." -Edmund Burke
When President Yar’dua appointed the present CBN governor in June of 2009, little details did I know about Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. I have only heard of him as the First Bank CEO and nothing else. However, when the appointment was announced I took time to read about the man Yar’dua has appointed to be the watch dog of the Nigerian financial system which I have always called money changers and traders and always argued that as far I am concerned the Nigeria banking sector can not be called banks because they lacked all the indices of a bank. Also I was worried that whoever is replacing the erudite Professor Chukwuma Soludo must exhibit a different trait and outlook to CBN and the banks they are meant to regulate and use the big hammer when necessary.
After reading some of the write up and position papers of Sanusi, from a range of issues from banking to leadership and to politics, ethnicity to religion and listening to his confirmation hearing in Senate chambers, I came to one conclusion that this man will take on anyone without fear or favor, including the man Yar’dua who appointed him, will come under his hammer with time unless he is fired for doing his job. I have great concern when Soludo started the consolidation exercise, though I worked in one of the banks then, I was not a main stream banker, I was among those nicknamed erroneously as cost center banker and proudly I love what I did for the bank then. My conviction then and still now is that making mega banks will not solve the frauds and sharp practices by our bankers. Deeply as I always believed and argued then and now was that no matter the size of the bank, the most important thing is that the bank leadership should play by the book and the rules and the regulations of the financial system must be upheld as engraved in our constitution.
For too long, chiefs of financial institutions have always escaped the hammer that could have served as a deterrent to others at the expense and back of the Nigerian people, especially on the back of the main street Nigerians. The main street Nigerians have always been given the short end of the stick. The Nigerian banking systems remain an advanced Ponzi scheme waiting for their prey and they have feasted on the main street Nigerians far too long for comfort. Most of the banks are like golden coffin – look good outside but they stink inside irrespective of the designer’s suit and the world class edifice that house them. It is common sense that banks could have one branch or be small, but the most important thing is not how big or small the bank is, but how well the operate within the specifics and frame work of the regulations and laws that guide the banking system.
As the events of the real inner cycle dealing and corruption of the financial systems unfolds, perpetrated by the top echelon of the financial institutions, highly placed business people, chiefs and politicians, Sanusi must do the following so as to solidify, reboot, rebuild and restructure the financial system to restore trust and confidence of the nation’s financial institutions.
- Enforce the laws and regulations that guide the nation’s financial system to the letter. Ensure that majority of the CBN enforcement and audit units are in the field supervising the banks closely instead of sitting tight in Abuja. CBN must at all times perform their primary duty of supervising the banks to forestall any form of compromise or faulting the law of the land that risk the investment of the hard earned money of the vulnerable Nigerian people.
- Investigate the banks that made it possible for corrupt leaders to steal the people’s money and launder it abroad through the help of the banks as a vehicle of money laundering. The modes of transfer for this money must be ascertained, get the initiators, transferees and the beneficiaries and bring those culpable to book.
- The names of those who helped in making such transfers; the medium (banks) and those who received it, benefited and helped facilitated the distribution must be made public both locally and internationally.
- Those external auditing companies that helped cook the books for these banks must be sanctioned by one, exposing their names to the Nigerian public, two suspend their license or whatever right they have to operate as an auditing company, thirdly fine them heavily and finally try the leadership of such auditing firm for been an accessory and a partner in financial crime and saboteurs of the Nigerian economy.
- The CBN officials who signed off on the doctored report submitted by these financial institutions that cooked their books to look good and covering up the rot and irresponsibility of their activities must also be sanctioned.
- Also CBN must ensure that the regulations as it relates to interest on loans must be upheld to protect the borrower and the investors. Or else how will one describe the situation where CBN says maximum interest rate for loans is so and so and the banks end up charging customers more than at least twice the stipulated interest rate, which they call service charge. It is ridiculous, how can service charges be up to twice above the maximum interest rate stipulated by CBN?
In 2008, as a typical example of the inefficiency of CBN in supervising the financial institutions as required by law, the United States office of Comptroller of the currency and the financial crimes enforcement Network indicted United Bank for Africa (UBA PLC) for illegal transaction and money laundering and fined UBA the sum of 15 million USD, while UBA was going through this they were busy carting away best that best this award in Nigeria, while CBN went to sleep and took a hike without saying a word or investigating UBA. Silence by CBN then becomes corruption instead of golden. In addition UBA forfeited the sum of 5 million USD to the US government in another instance in 2007 nothing was mentioned or done by CBN as the supervisor of the financial system.
The Press Statement from FINCEN reads: “The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) today announced the assessment of concurrent civil money penalties, each $15 million, against the New York Branch of United Bank for Africa, PLC (“the Branch”) for violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The Branch, without admitting or denying the allegations, consented to payment of the civil money penalties, which will be satisfied by a single payment of $15 million to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
In January 2007, due to Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) program deficiencies, the OCC issued a Cease & Desist Order (C&D Order), by consent, to the Branch. During an OCC targeted examination conducted in November 2007 to determine compliance with the 2007 C&D Order, OCC examiners determined that the Branch had failed to comply with the Order's terms and that significant BSA program deficiencies remained pervasive and systemic, including internal control and audit deficiencies, as well as the Branch's continued failure to identify and report suspicious activities. (Pointblanknews, 2008)
This is how bad our banking system and the supervisory body was then, a crime committed in the USA by a bank with its corporate head quarters in Nigeria paid a fine that is as big as 15 million USD to the US treasury was ignored, overlooked and allowed to do business as usual by CBN. The fine is related to million of dollars deposited by a Nigerian, probably money belonging to the Nigerian people stolen by their leaders without blinking, they simply went free with no sanctions, no queries, no investigation and no caution. The UBA case is a case in hand that shows how CBN has been operating over the years with no proper supervision, they looked the other way while the banks have a field day ravaging the savings of the Nigerian people and carrying out all forms of illegality.
Nigerians and in this present circumstance CBN should endeavor to avoid half measures, as half measures like half cooked meat risk poisoning the body system because the gems or bacteria were never destroyed and eventually grows in the body and causes collateral damage to the body system such is the Nigeria we live in today. Please Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, do not back down irrespective of the pressure until the Augean stable of the stinking and nauseating Nigerian financial system is totally cleaned up with no trace of the past evil and misdeeds bequeathed on innocent Nigerians. The culture of impunity in the Nigeria financial system must stop.
Mr. Hopkins-Amachree, an Information Technology professional sent in this piece from Phoenix, Arizona. He can be contacted at hopkins_amachree@yahoo.com
Reference:
Pointblanknews.(2008). U.S indicts UBA for money laundering, fined $15 million. Retrieved August 18, 2009 from, http://pointblanknews.com/os907.html
