Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has revealed that those responsible for running Skye Bank Plc aground would be prosecuted by the Federal Government.
Ahmed, made this known on Friday, October 5, while on a visit to the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), in Abuja.
The visit to the NDIC was one of her first official activities having been recently appointed following the resignation of erstwhile Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun.
During the visit, the Minister directed the Managing Director of NDIC, Mr Umaru Ibrahim, to ensure that a thorough investigation is conducted to find out why the bank failed.
She said that at the end of the investigations all those found culpable in the failure of the bank would be prosecuted.
“We have to show some examples. We cannot just be bailing out banks and leaving perpetrators of the failure of these banks to go scot-free.
“Even though you, NDIC, intervene by protecting depositors, but your intervention is limited.
“You’re not able to pay back all that the depositors have. We must show some examples and this is a good one for us to start with,” she said.
Ahmed stressed the need for the NDIC to continuously monitor the banks to ensure that problems were detected early and solved before they became a crisis.
Skye Bank ran into financial crisis two years ago when it could not meet its required liquidity threshold. Subsequently, the chairman Tunde Ayeni and his board were sacked with another named. Alhaji Muhammad K. Ahmad emerging as Chairman and Tokunbo Abiru, as Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the financial institution. The bank was recapitalised with N350 billion as intervention fund in July 2016.
Less than two years later, the financial institution ran into another trouble. The decision to revoke the bank’s licence was taken following the inability of its owners to increase the capital of the distressed bank.
On Saturday, September 22, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), revoked the operating licence of Skye Bank Plc, unveiling an bridge bank, Polaris Bank.
The financial institution was created to assume the assets and liabilities of the defunct Skye Bank Plc.
Some of the people who have been indicted in the mess that saw Skye Bank Plc running into financial crisis include its former Chairman, Tunde Ayeni who took a multi-billion Naira from the bank.
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