Five Sacked Bank Chiefs Charged

The Five sacked bank Chiefs have appeared in a court in Lagos.

The culprits are , Mrs Cecilia Ibru, former Managing Director Of Oceanic Bank, Erastus Akingbola of Intercontinental Bank now declared wanted, Okey Nwosu of Fin Bank, Sebastian Adikwe of Afri Bank and Bartholomew Ebong of Union Bank.

The banks chiefs are facing criminal charges of granting loans without collateral or board approval and in some cases to individuals or companies using fictitious names.

Spokesperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Femi Babafemi said, "there are other criminal charges, especially money laundering against the former bank chiefs."

Babafemi said the agency had recovered 45.5 billion naira non-performing loans by the end of last week.

The Central Bank injected 400 billion naira into Afribank, Finbank, Intercontinental Bank, Oceanic Bank and Union Bank just over two weeks ago and sacked their senior management.

However, the National Assembly has queried the CBN on the bailout without recourse to due process

The banks had built up non-performing loans worth 1.14 trillion naira, leaving some of them close to collapse and at risk of triggering a systemic banking crisis in sub-Saharan Africa's second biggest economy.

EFCC agents have also been hunting debtors, including some of Nigeria's most powerful tycoons, whom the regulator said owed the five banks 747 billion naira.

Reuters/ Write Up / Qasim / Funke