*Photograph of the defunct Skye Bank Plc, inset Mr. Tunde Ayeni, a former Chairman of the bank (left) and Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emefiele
- Pan Ocean Group alone accounts for over N240billion
- Pan Ocean Group promoted by Dr. Festus Fadeyi of
- Debt exposes regulatory failure
- Why failed bank Act must be reintroduce
Fresh facts have emerged as to what led to the collapse of Skye Bank Plc as well as its eventual takeover by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) about two years ago. The operating licence of Skye Bank was revoked by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on September 21, 2018 as the bank could no longer meet its obligation.
Top on the list of issues that killed the hitherto big bank include serious insider dealings, non-existent corporate governance structure, loan racketeering to friends and cronies and bad management just to mention a few. All these malpractices and reckless abuse by the leadership of the bank, we gathered, made it possible for a few individuals to gratuitously expose the bank to the tune of over N500billion.
Although we stumbled on a long list of those who ordinarily should be in jail as a result of their roles in the eventual collapse of the bank, it was frightening to note that only one individual accounted for a debt exposure to the bank in excess of over N240billion, which is more than the annual budget of the country’s Ministry of Works for instance.
Additional dirty details of these transactions revealed that Pan Ocean Group promoted by Dr. Festus Fadeyi, a flamboyant oil and gas businessman owed the bank over N240billion. He was represented on the Board by his son, Jason Fadeyi when all the funds were taken.
Although these individuals have ruined lives as well as investments made by hundreds if not thousands of the bank’s innocent shareholders most of who we gathered lost lifetime investments when the bank died. However, Mr. Fadeyi among others who killed the bank have continued to live their life in total opulence, which is a reflection of a weak financial regulatory laws in the country.
Skye Bank Plc collapsed in 2018 leading to its takeover by the Federal Government of Nigeria through AMCON, which injected a fresh cash of about N786billion. AMCON had to step in because the bank required urgent recapitalisation in order to save thousands of jobs and depositors’ money.
In other climes such people that have brought distress to a bank and untold hardship to innocent depositors should indeed be made to account for what happened to the bank. But the story of Skye Bank’s collapse is also an indictment on the supervisory role of the regulatory agencies such as the CBN and the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), among others.
