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Banking went into overdrive after the Soludo intervention.  The salary I earned which I thought was substantial at the time I left, was quadrupled in…

Banking went into overdrive after the Soludo intervention.  The salary I earned which I thought was substantial at the time I left, was quadrupled in some cases.  Nigeria also decided to establish itself solidly as a financial sector economy.  Soludo could not be questioned, from within or without.  His word was law, and so were the words of his adoring protégés – the few elite bankers who went ahead to stage what has been described as ‘regulatory capture’; a scenario where all regulators were effectively pocketed and corrupted.  Nigerian bankers flew all over the world receiving awards from sundry sources, and they got Mr Soludo to kowtow along, despite being their regulator, to open inconsequential branches around the world – all expense paid.  

Soludo, who now plans to be the next Anambra governor (and his people seem to take him serious), also went ahead and played the Obasanjo con game on banks – while the financial sector evidently collapsed, he launched a mega hospital in his village in memory of his long-dead mother, and raised billions of Naira from the bankers.  Banks taxed themselves to throw him lavish parties.  Sanusi Lamido is today having to clean up the mega-mess created by Soludo.  By every means, it is absurd that the latter has not been questioned at all as to his role in the “collapse” of best practices and commonsense in the banking industry.  It is totally unacceptable.  

Fast-forward to the present.  Bankers are losing their jobs by the droves, and those who laughed at my decision to become a ‘journalist’ (thought I am just a columnist and I have other businesses I do), are now praising my ‘foresight’.  No it wasn’t exactly foresight.  It is more like gut feeling – knowing that a lot was wrong about the way we did business and feeling bad enough that we were there earning large salaries while the rest of the economy collapsed around our regal feet.  Little did I know that whatever atrocities I saw in my time was child’s play.  

The last few years have seen bankers purchasing private jets and yachts with depositors’ funds, living like moviestars and corrupting the rank and file by sharing these ‘looted’ funds on inanities.  Some of the banks initiated fantastic loan packages for staff at 3% interest rates for 20 years tenors.  Not that the idea behind the loans to help staff was bad, but when you give mere Managers loans in the region of N200 million while you turn away customers with genuine ideas needing financing, then there is a problem. And such a system will surely collapse.  Most of the banks incorporated a stay at the world’s only 7-star hotel in Dubai as part of their standard holidays.  Middle managers began to fly first class with their entire families.  Nobody cared.  It only confirms what I have always said on this page that government is not necessarily our problem, but we ourselves.  

We thought we had arrived as a country.  Our banking sector was new and flashy. Churches pumped up people’s adrenalin to celebrate their new-found wealth.  Banks financed consumer products only, like new cars and fantastic real estate, the more expensive the better.  And if the Pastor needed a private jet or two, well, the banks sprung up the finance to augment what gullible churchgoers donated on Sunday.

But even the most hard-hearted person will feel bad about the way bankers are being sacked these days.  And there is palpable fear yet in many banks.  Reality has dawned all of a sudden.  And perhaps if the same Soludo had not deceived the country that we were immune from the global crises, the adjustments would have started earlier and the shock would have been less.  I feel more for the hapless dependants of the bankers who had benefited from the previous era.  Many bankers are finding it difficult to send their children back to school in January.  I even saw one driving a ‘kabu-kabu’ last Tuesday.  He had been laid off and his children had to feed.

One could not blame the bankers for thinking things would never change.  Now they have to face up to a double whammy – salary cuts, plus a sacking spree.  It will prove to be too much for many families.  But what I would blame them for, is that they thought once they sort themselves out, everyone else could go to blazes.  They rode roughshod on the rest of us.  We cannot all do the right thing in life, but the more Nigerians than think for the collective, the earlier we will, as a country, get out of the current morass.  

In the ensuing melee, it would seem that the government has set itself up. This is the time for government to move really fast in its economic diversification efforts.  This is the time for those stimulus packages for different sectors to kick in so that those who are been turned to the streets by the thousands, can have alternatives.  And it will be the beginning of glory for this country and a major achievement for the Yar’adua government. Failing this, the cleanup of the banking industry will at best be a pyrrhic victory – so much damage, but little tangibles to show for it.  This government does not want to go down as the most unpopular in recent times, despite its good intentions and despite getting Sanusi to do some yeoman’s job.  

Also, the criteria for identifying who to sack needs to be checked.  Staff are being retained based on how much of public sector funds they are able to seduce from government officials, which in essence are monies meant for infrastructural development, which gets confiscated in banks’ balance sheets, then the banking industry will end up throwing out staff with integrity and retaining shallow, heartless and visionless desperadoes.  Not a good picture at all.  SLS, please act fast! 

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