Following the revocation of Skye Bank Plc licence by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the former chairman and another director of the defunct bank, Mr. Tunde Ayeni and Dr. Festus Fadeyi are currently under investigation.

This is coming as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with other African countries where Nigerian banks are located to protect host countries.

The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), Mr. Umaru Ibrahim, disclosed this on the sidelines of the International Association of Deposit Insurers (IADI) Africa Regional Committee(ARC) workshop in Lagos wedbesday.

The heavy borrowings by Ayeni and Fadeyi are largely linked to the insolvency of the defunct Skye Bank, which led to its being taken over by the CBN two years ago. Its licence was, however, revoked last Friday while its assets and liabilities were taken over by a bridge bank called Polaris Bank Limited. Records from the last financial results showed that Ayeni, and Fadeyi, had borrowed heavily from the bank. Ayeni and his partners were alleged to have taken loans to fund their acquisitions of the Ibadan and Yola Electricity Distribution Companies; NITEL/M-Tel; and an energy services firm, Ascot Offshore Nigeria Limited.

Also, Fadeyi, through Pan Ocean, took loans to fund the firm’s oil and gas upstream projects which were considered as one of the major non-performing loans amongst others.

On the board members who were responsible for the bank’s downfall, Umaru said: “They are being investigated and I can assure you that when the time comes, the necessary security and law enforcement agencies would do their work.”

He also said that on recent developments around cross border collaboration, the CBN had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with other African countries where Nigerian banks are located to protect host countries.

Umaru said: “ There are many Nigerian banks that are operating in other parts of Africa and other parts of the world and that calls for collaboration and at various jurisdictions. CBN for instance has signed MoUs with the bank of Ghana, Sierra Leone and wherever our banks are so that in case of failure of a branch of a Nigerian bank a particular country outside Nigeria there can be a collaboration so as to ensure that the depositors of those host countries do not suffer.”

According to him, the NDIC as one of the resolution authorities in Nigeria, has adopted different resolution mechanisms in resolving the failure of distressed deposit-taking financial institutions in the country.

•Excerpted from a THISDAY report

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