Alhaji! Alhaji!!

The High Chief himself! Abeg why you dey call me Alhaji? I no want wahala oh!

You know now... what's good? How is work?

Very fine bro! And yours?

It's cool! Hope you have realized the error in Sanusi's action? The worst now is that foreign investors are ignoring our country now. Those inside already are running out in droves.

Those guys already saw what was wrong and were pulling out before this restoration action of Sanusi. They saw through the lies of our magical bankers! These guys were manipulating the stock exchange and cooking their books in the name of banking. Without them corruption will be alien in this clime.

I am talking to you as a professional banker - I know I'm just learning the ropes... The investment banking unit of most banks can testify to this, this guy is only flexing his muscle. I am not in support of these banker guys, but things should be done constitutionally. These guys erred, no doubt, but my problem is the manner with which Sanusi and his cohorts are going about it.

Going about what? I don't doubt that you are an insider but I still know that things were not right especially with the investment bankers. Okay explain the AP/Union/Zenith affair please. Those guys are the investment Bankers you are talking about right? You should have called them forgery bankers.

Please hear me out! According to the ethos of this noble profession, these guys erred, no doubt, but my problem is the manner with which Sanusi and his cohorts are going about it. He is doing the right thing in a wrong way...

[interrupts] What is he doing wrongly if I may ask?

That's all I'm saying...

What is he doing wrongly please?

[silence]

My guy! Please what is he doing wrongly? Maybe I'm not seeing it but you can point it out to me!

Okay I will do just that! That's if you will allow me.

Okay go ahead! You have the floor now.

1. Publishing names of debtors. 2. Pushing N400billion into the troubled banks without the consent of the National Assembly 3. Asking the EFCC to arrest and prosecute these guys, what happens to the legal arm of government? I can go on and on you know!

lol... Guy abeg! You dey make me laugh

Ask any sincere professional they will tell you the same

Just hold it please let me respond to the issues you have raised?

Did you listen to that Harvard professor on ChannelsTV on sunday?

Please hold on! Abeg now! I don't care about what the Harvard Professor had to say! Americans can make do with his knowledge at this point to stop more banks from failing or at worst help them find a solution to the healthcare challenge that is threatening to tear down their union.

Okay I'm holding on... before you go over the cliff!

Good! I agree on the first issue. It was wrong for him to have published the list of debtors. It destroys the customer-banker confidentiality. A confidentiality that is as old as banking itself. It will be terrible for my Lawyer to tell the world everything I tell him in confidence or for my Doctor to publish my medical history on the pages of the newspaper and every blog site on the internet. On that I concede but remember that this is Nigeria. Without that list, it would have been difficult to convince us that we have been practicing voodoo banking for some time now.

On the second issue, he does not need the consent of our dull and stupid National Assembly to loan out money or make investments of any kind. The CBN is not only the Government's banker; it also has a responsibility to protect the entire banking system of the country. It has power to make investments at its own discretion and that's what it has done in this case. So your National Assembly can scream themselves hoax!

Do you know that the National Assembly has directed that the CBN shouldn't pump any more money into the banks? Why is that?

Are you listening to me at all? Silence is the best answer for a fool! I can't say more than that to them on that issue! They should read the CBN act, they made the law. Besides they are just playing to the gallery. Trust me Sanusi has alredy ignored them. They should do their worst. Thank God his job is now guaranteed. So they are stock with him for the next 5 years.

My guy... the constitution of Nigeria states that...

Please I'm still talking... besides if Sanusi needs anyone's permission to make this kind of investment, it is the Presidents; and he got it. Don't tell me anything about constitution. I don't want to hear it.

I can't go into details of that right now but if what you are saying is right, how come the NBA and National Assembly, a number of elder statesmen and professionals have revolted against that particular move. Why?

On the EFCC issue, though I don't like the frustrated woman but have the debtors not been paying? The most important thing is that the non-performing loans are now over-performing. Those people you call elder statesmen are our biggest problem in this country. Go and check it! These same people shouted themselves blue when Soludo announced his con-soludo-tion. They eventually benefitted the most from it, so much so that there is too much money for them to obtain all manner of loans. Those old men are only fighting for their own interest, not those of the ordinary people that stood the risk of losing their deposit to the unprofessional ways of our modern day bankers

Yes the debtors have been paying but the question is: is it the duty of the EFCC to collect debts? Are they debt collectors? What is the sole responsibility of the EFCC? That's what we should be asking here?

The EFCC has responsibility anywhere there is a financial crime and clearly financial crime has been committed here!

Certainly you wouldn't want to agree with me... I just pray for this country, I really pray

Prayer? Can't we take some responsibility? Everything prayer, even when it's within our power to do. We would rather prayer, even when we want to commit crime, it's still prayer. Na wa oh! Okay do you know a certain Peter Ololo?

Seriously it's only God that knows where we are heading! I have heard of him. He is a stockbroker.

Yes he is! He was an Ex-banker and now a stockbroker. Not just your run of the mill broker! I call him the 'bank stock manipulator'.

I agree with you on that one, and that is if what I hear about him is all true - because I don't have substantive facts.

Facts? Yeah right! He traded on only bank stocks for banks and their executives only. Of course with insider information provided by the banks. What's more criminal than insider trading? We have had weak regulatory institutions. SEC that should be a feared regulatory agency was rather in bed with those that raped every rule in the book.

I don't deny all of these, but my own problem is that if these issues are to be treated, they've got to be treated in the right and proper manner. Time will expose certain things u will see...trust me. You will realize that even the so-called holy people, who are doing all the castigating right now have got skeletons in their own cupboards too.

No doubt that we have all got stuffs in our cupboards but we can't throw our jails open just because we have not caught all the criminals. Let's start we these ones that we can identify.

Its okay since you think this is good and well, but we must all be wary of the repercussions.

Again no doubt, it's not the perfect solution even if you think they are not sincere about it, at least they seem to be doing something for a change and for the first time too!


I know you will go ballistic if I tell you that Sanusi is on a revenge mission! He has an agenda up his sleeves! Some have called it a northern agenda to get back at the south and Soludo for leaving them home and dry during the consolidation. This guy is not as genuine as he is trying to make us believe! That is why I am saying that time will tell. Watch it; the banks will be sold off to northerners in a year or two!

Ehm... ehm... am I supposed to respond to that? Bruv no way! Tell your co-bankers to become professional on their job so that whatever mission or agenda that you claim that Sanusi has in his trouser pocket will fail. Tell them that loans need security not face recognition; tell them that risk need to be assessed not just based on friendship but against the economy and its viability. Tell them that where such risk fails, they owe a duty to their shareholders to disclose it. Tell them that banking does not make them chefs. They should quit cooking their books! Tell them that the ethics of banking include honesty and sincerity. Tell them that not every project initiated by Otedola or Dangote or Okereke-Onyiuke or Ibori or Ololo or Rahamaniyya or Imasekha is viable! Tell them that people like me have got ideas that can fly too, that needs only 10 million and not 90 billion to execute. Bankers are supposed to have eagle eye! To be frugal and prudent. They are supposed to be conservative, not having wild orgies, wearing the best bespoke suites and latest designer perfumes, wristwatches, Italian shoes, flying private jets, attending every party in the world and splurging on all kinds of excessive luxury with poor depositors and little investors' money like mine. If they do these, Sanusi will be put to shame, but until then, they should dance to the music the waxed and quit raising sentiments. And that's the end of this discussion. When you are ready for some serious discussion, hola at me! But if it's Sanusi's northern agenda you want to talk about then I got to go to work now!