Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has reassured chairpersons of all the 25 Nigerian banks of the Federal Government’s resolve not to allow the financial services sector to cave in, as the regulatory bank embarks on wide-sweeping clean up of the industry.
Mr. Sanusi’s re-assurance follows the CBN sacking of five banks CEOs, which has thrown up panic in the financial services sector, with investors expressing concern about their investments in these banks.
The bank CEOs that were sacked included Oceanic International Bank Plc, Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, Intercontinental Bank Plc, Afribank Nigeria Plc and Finbank Plc.
At a meeting with bank’s board chairperson and CEOs at the CBN regional office in Lagos on Friday, Mr. Sanusi was said to have explained that the clean up was necessary in order to restore confidence in the financial system.
Our source, who attended the meeting quoted the CBN governor as explaining that the sacking of the banks CEOs was as a result of the recent stress audit of 10 out of the 25 banks, in which the five affected banks were found to be unhealthy, while two of them were on the border line.
The source also revealed that the CBN governor said the regulator would continue the audit for the remaining 15 banks.
Meanwhile, latest reports from NEXT correspondent say that the Headquarters of some of the affected banks, notably, Union Bank and Afribank, have been overrun by security operatives.
NEXT gathered that police officers were early this morning deployed to the five banks ahead of Mr. Sanusi’s meeting with the banks officials who were ordered not to send proxies in view of the seriousness of the situation.
According to our correspondent, “there are heavy security presence at the Head Offices of Union Bank and Afribank. The entire Customs Street, Marina, where the CBN office is located and venue for the meeting is also heavily guarded.”
Mr. Sanusi is holding a press conference to intimate the public with developments in the industry.


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