The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had at least 10 days to arrest the alleged chief culprits of the banking crisis, but it waited patiently for both suspects to disappear and then declared them wanted.
Yesterday the anti-graft agency dramatically declared Cecilia Ibru and Erastus Akingbola, both fired Aug. 14 as chief executives respectively of Oceanic Bank and Intercontinental Bank, wanted on charges of fraud, stock manipulation, and money laundering.
The belated action came amid silent grumbling from several EFCC investigators, who in Abuja yesterday queried, in hushed tones, the judgment and sincerity of their superiors in first allowing the executives of the worst-affected banks to slip across the border into relative safety, before appearing to swing into action.
Mrs. Ibru and Mr. Akingbola are being sought, the EFCC said in a statement, for “fraudulent abuse of credit process, insider trading, capital market manipulation and money laundering running into billions of Naira.”
The EFCC chairman, Farida Waziri, directed that the two former bank executives be declared wanted because of “their failure to honour the Commission’s invitation,” said the agency’s spokesman, Femi Babafemi.
“Apart from failing to honour the Commission’s invitation, intensive search for the two executives in the last one week has not been successful. They obviously went into hiding to evade arrest,” the commission claimed.
A fall from grace
Yesterday’s official declaration of both key fixtures in our banking industry as fugitives from the law represented a stunning fall from the highest reaches of our society.
Mrs. Ibru, who rose more quickly and dramatically from being the boss’s secretary, to wife and to bank chief, was a fixture of the Lagos social circuit and the Abuja political firmament for the past five years, following the consolidation of the banking industry.
Mr. Akingbola, a career banker, almost singlehandedly built Intercontinental into a local behemoth, along the way collecting awards by the bushel.
The two rose in the era of bankers as superstars, bigger than any Nollywood starlet, and permanently gracing the pages of newspapers. They were fawned over and people laughed at thier jokes and genuflected and praised and honoured them.
They were masters of the universe, until a less compliant leadership in the Central Bank began asking tough questions and several banks were soon exposed as little more than a house of cards.
Yesterday, it all ended in their being classified as fugitives from the law, like any common criminal.
Three other bank CEOs, of Union Bank, Afribank, and Finbank, who also were forced out by the CBN, are being questioned by the authorities.
Politically well-connected
But some EFCC investigators told NEXT yesterday they were unhappy at the seeming carelessness or worse of the agency’s leadership, saying both prominent bankers could just as easily have been hauled in and charged over the past week.
“Is it not the case that Oceanic and Intercontinental post the largest debt profile in the whole mess, so why are the three others being held, while these two sacred cows can quietly dissolve from the scene?” one EFCC investigator told us in Abuja yesterday. “Is it because they have no godfathers?”
The investigators spoke to us on condition of anonymity, to protect themselves from possible retaliation by superiors. Their reference to godfathers was an allusion to former Delta governor James Ibori, who is believed by the EFCC to be the major shareholder of Ascot Offshore Nigeria and Notore Chemical Industries. Ascot is the largest non-performing debtor at Intercontinental, owing the troubled bank about N45 billion.
Similarly, Notore owes Oceanic more than N32 billion, the single highest non-performing account on the bank’s loan book. Mr. Ibori is a political ally of the attorney general and minister of justice, Michael Aondoakaa, and has been named as one of the chief sponsors of Mrs. Waziri to the EFCC post. Since Mrs. Waziri took charge of the EFCC, following the ouster of Nuhu Ribadu, all fraud charges against Mr. Ibori have been quietly dropped.
Yesterday, the EFCC was putting on a brave face, saying it has decided to seek help from members of the public on the whereabouts of the executives. The EFCC also warned that anybody harbouring the two fugitives will be treated as an accomplice and subject to the full fury of the law.
“This development has made it imperative for the Commission to solicit for useful information from Nigerians who know their whereabouts,” the agency said in a statement. “In the same vein, it is necessary to warn that anybody who harbours the two former bank executives will be treated as an accomplice or accessory to crime.”
On Aug. 18, the commission had threatened to declare the five bank executives wanted should they fail to show up at the end of the day, but only three of them did.
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