Date Published: 08/19/09
19th August 2009 PRESS RELEASE
“BANK PROBE IS IN ORDER”, SAYS LAGOS AC.
The Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress has described the present probe of the banking sector as desirable but coming a little too late. The party wants a full inquest into the activities of the Nigerian banks to save what is remaining of the huge investment of Nigerians in these badly ran and mismanaged banks.
In a release in Lagos, signed by the party’s Lagos State Publicity Secretary, Joe Igbokwe, the party says that while it backs a holistic purge of the Nigerian banking sector, that the government should ensure that it actions tend towards ensuring that the perennial mismanagement of Nigerian banks are purged once and for all.
“We are on record as being among the first Nigerians that raised alarm about the huge scam the banking industry in Nigeria had been made to assume. This was at a time that Nigerian banks found the capital market so attractive that the business of placing shares for subscription replaced the core business of banks in Nigeria. We were to raise our fears and suspicion about the unceasing fad to rake up capital from the market and we expressed our fear about the health of the banks and the statistic behind this issuance of share offers.
“Again, when the early symptoms of the distressed economy dawned and the great devaluation of the investments of Nigerians in these banks, we raised a louder concern about the impoverishment that awaits Nigerians if nothing was done to stem that free fall. We raised our concern about the real health of the Nigerian banks, especially as so much hue and cry were raised about underhand, sharp practices in these banks. Our strident expression of concern and those of so many other skeptic Nigerians who were convinced that there were enough voodoosim in both the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the Banking sector were told that our country was immune from the global economic crunch. This was even when we started experiencing the economic crisis, even before the global whistle was sounded for that crisis.
“The long and short of all these deceptive official attitude was that the common Nigerians who poured their life-earnings into what came to become one huge financial scam, was left at the mercy of unscrupulous executives and their collaborators to milk dry. With this belated admittance, Nigerians were left to the greed of these bank officials who continued their traditional acts of cooking the books, indulging in insider trading and bogus loan portfolio. These have transferred the life earning of Nigerians into the private hands of the bank executives and their few collaborators.
“We call for a full scale probe of the entire banking sector and that all culprits must be punished. Above all, we call that measures be put in place to help Nigerians from their huge loss in the economic crisis and the wave of corruption perpetrated in the banking sector. We demand that measures be equally put in place to prevent such insider abuse in the banking sector and indeed in all sectors of the Nigerian economy. Above we all, we call for durable measures to ensure that the country’s economy is safeguarded against perennial abuse by the practitioners and save the country from cyclical financial crisis that has been our lot for a very long time.”
Joe Igbokwe.
Publicity Secretary,
Lagos AC.
