Beyond Sanusi’s palliative
Soludo’s consolidation is finally being exposed for what it is, a skin graft on a cancerous sore without addressing the underlying disease. The chickens are finally flying home to roost; unfortunately, our unharvested corn is left exposed. Before we blame the fat cats now on their way to national disgrace, let us talk about the […]
Soludo’s consolidation is finally being exposed for what it is, a skin graft on a cancerous sore without addressing the underlying disease. The chickens are finally flying home to roost; unfortunately, our unharvested corn is left exposed. Before we blame the fat cats now on their way to national disgrace, let us talk about the incapacity or unwillingness of the CBN as an institution to play its supervisory role. Three reasons could be adduced for this, corruption, connivance and the inability of people to move on when their professional advice is no longer valued. This cancer goes beyond the banks, it’s right there at the CBN and we can only hope that Sanusi would look as much inwards as he looks outwards in cleaning the Aegean stable.
Is the August 14 action all that is needed to restore order? Were the now fighting bank executives dozing in their boardrooms while people’s money were being given to people of questionable character and business deals as non-collaterised loans? Where their decision to give loans to cartels instead of industries altruistic and can the acts of such cartels be truly curtailed? After all, only recently, government decided to totally remove subsidy rather than confront this same cartel sabotaging efforts to cushion the effect of the high price of petrol. Will these fat-cats ever be identified, exposed and dealt with under this regime even though their heinous crimes are worse than armed robbery since the effects gnaw at the economic jugular of the nation.
The domino effect of these actions would ricochet across every home if the affected banks go under. We therefore expect action in reining in these saboteurs before they could use the NADECO route. Security agents should go after their assets and their laundered money first within our shores and wherever they may be hiding it. It is time to send strong signals to those who believe in business as usual that the world is changing. But can we do that where present office holders are embroiled and embedded in this corruption cycle having laundered their ill-gotten wealth into these financial institutions? All those overnight shareholding without commensurate means of earnings, all those change of lives that make miracles lies and those who own them.
The decision to inject public funds into the affected banks may look altruistic, but is it? The CBN is using our money to salvage a sector that is driven by greed and with little socio-economic impact on the society. Should we allow it? Is it the required thing? How many people are employed in the banking sector compared to the textile and manufacturing sector from where thousands have been laid-off because of these underhand financial deals? Did we, as a people agree that our money should be used in this wise? What do we stand to gain from it as a people? After all, if the affected banks had succeeded in their greedy quest, would their directors and covetous shareholders have shared their loot with the rest of us? The answer is no. So, we need to question the rationale behind this injection and find out who stands to gain from it. Is this not a back-door effort to rob kwashiorkor-looking Peters to pay already rotund Pauls?
The way this has been done in civilised parts of the world is that governments should peg what these fat cats can take in terms of severance packages. Such packages, if they exist should be commensurate with the amount of psycho-social damage their action or inaction may have caused the society and of course the panic attack they generated. The rot is deeper than we are made to believe and the sanction must be commensurate with the offence. But above all, we need swift action please, not the usual go-slow which allows the offenders to rearm and hibernate. Big question is – who are the real offenders if not the men in power!
HERE IS SOMETHING FROM A DEMASKED WAKAMAN
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