Download the full list from the Central Bank's website
Pushing on doggedly with its reform of the septic banking environment in the country, the new management team at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) late Tuesday published the list of the country's worst debtors on its website as an "Advertorial."
In a prefatory note to the table of debtors that has 205 names, the CBN said, "Following the recent regulatory action of the Central Bank of Nigeria on the five banks, it has become necessary to use this medium to request the following defaulting customers of the affected banks to pay without further delay their indebtedness, failing which the banks will take all appropriate legal actions to ensure repayment.
"These are the largest debtors and the CBN will continue to publish the list of defaulters on an on-going basis."
A keen reading of the CBN advertorial indicates that the five ailing banks that lost their management team in last Friday's "Bank Massacre", were neck deep in debt reaching the staggering proportions of N740 Billion, a quarter of the nation's annual budget.
The CBN Governor, Lamido Sanusi, blamed the intimidating numbers on what he described as the poor risk management, and corporate governance profile of the banks' management.
The Central Bank also took the daring step to name the institutional and individual debtors, many who are among the nation's high and mighty, and also warning them to "pay without further delay their indebtedness, failing which the banks will take all appropriate legal actions to ensure repayment."
Of the 205 debtors, most of whose indebtedness are in the double digit bracket, three elect for a daring borrowing culture which the CBN derisively characterise as "Non-performing", an euphemism for a poor credit record of not servicing ones debt.
These are companies in the Rahmaniyya Group which owe just two of these banks 41 Billion naira; companies headed by Peter Ololo, which owe three of the banks 76 Billion naira; and companies owned by the controversial Transcorp Plc, which owe two of the banks 41 Billion naira.
The Rahmaniyya Group is owned by Abdulrahman Bashir, Peter Ololo is the Managing Director of Falcon Securities in Lagos while Transcorp Plc is headed by the Director General of the Nigeria Stock Exhange, Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke.
The CBN stated in its advertorial that its action in exposing the debtors draws directly from its mission to restore proper regulatory culture in the industry long characterised by an "anything goes attitude."
Some of the banks had attempted to rationalise the huge debt overhang in different ways. The management of Intercontinental bank, one of the five ailing banks, in an open letter to President Umaru Yar'Adua on August 12, blamed its debt on "a plethora of personalities otherwise called the cabal who have deliberately refused to make returns in respect of facilities from which they have benefitted."
These could however not save the bank's management from being fired by the CBN. Other banks whose management were sacked are Union Bank, Afribank, Oceanic Bank and Finbank.
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