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NSITF: Who Is Behind The Hostile Acquisition Of Afribank Workers’ Shares? By Saint Azuh
When the National Council on Privatisation, in June 2005, approved the sale of the 80 million shares of Afribank held by the Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE) on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, the decision was well- intended as it was meant to enable more Nigerians buy into the bank.
And this made the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE), relying on the existing privatization Regulations, to give the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) a preferential window to buy shares during the privatization and consolidation exercise. These shares were to either be kept in trust for the Nigerian workers or be sold out rightly to workers. The NSITF executed this authourity when it invested the pension funds of the Nigerian workers in the acquisition of shares.
Also, the NSTIF during the last consolidation exercise in the banking sector invested about N2 billion on behalf of the Nigerian workers and this helped Afribank meet up with the capital base threshold set by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Now, these stakes held by NSITF in Afribank on behalf of Nigerian workers have been, as alleged by the bank workers’ unions, “clandestinely acquired by Access Bank” riding on the directive of the Presidency to NSITF to liquidate and transfer its funds to Trustfund Pensions Plc.
As claimed by the Afribank workers’ union, “the way and manner these shares were acquired by Access Bank violated provisions of Section 2(d)(i) and (ii) of the Banks and other financial Institutions Acts as well as Rules 235 (1)(a) and (b) and 238 (1) of Regulations of Take-Overs”. Anyway, this is for the legal experts to trash at the law court.
The issue concerned Nigerians, especially Afribank workers should worry about is to attempt to deconstruct the entire loop in the Afribank shares acquisition scandal or rather fraud depending on who is doing the description.
Questions: Who in the Presidency ordered the divestment of the Nigerian workers shares in Afribank hitherto held in trust for the workers by NSITF? Who are the controlling share holders in Access Bank? Who are the controlling share holders in Bank of Industry? Who in the Presidency facilitated the release of the huge amount of money by Bank of Industry to Access Bank to enable it acquire the NSITF stake in Afribank? Are there common “denominators” in the ownership equation of Bank of Industry and Access Bank?
A careful analysis or rather honest answer to the above questions would greatly help the Nigerian workers properly establish their case and maybe ascertain their real enemies in this Afribank injustice. Needless to emphasize that whosoever approved the NSITF divestment from Afribank at the Presidency, also has a strong hand in Access Bank. From intelligent correlation and simple logic whosoever was responsible, equally has a commanding power in the Bank of Industry if not the release of funds by the bank would not have been done with executive fiat.
It is a clear case. Both the government and the regulatory bodies have interestingly decided not only to keep num but to play a broad-daylight double standard in the entire Afribank deal. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has deliberately refused to convene a meeting of Boards of both Afribank and Access Bank to seek their consent in the deal as required by law; maybe the CBN will do that by tomorrow morning.
When the bank workers unions said “We have been reliably informed that the Bank of Industry must have mobilized Access Bank in the exercises and we are currently investigating the source of funds mobilized by Access Bank for these transactions because the law does not allow any Bank to use its depositors fund for this kind of transaction”, they failed to realize the gist of the entire matter. There was no need to cite a precedent, viz: “the STB was informed by CBN in 2004 that it could not use depositors’ funds for the acquisition of the 33.96 percent Banque International Pour L'Afrique Occidenate (BIAO) shares”. The Afribank case is in a class of its own. It rightly falls under the class of outright abuse of office, or rather impropriety and unrighteous influence peddling by top Government and PDP officials. This is the truth of the matter.
The questions raised earlier would help us better appreciate where the Afribank problem is coming from. And I would once again ask: Are there common “denominators” in the ownership equation between the Presidency, Bank of Industry and Access Bank? If there are, then these “common- factors” must be responsible for the entire deal.
“It is our request that SEC should suspend these transactions and immediately cause a full-blown investigation into all these shady deals with a view to unraveling the source of funds and the inputs of powerful people both within and outside the two banks”, was the main prayer of the Afribank workers unions. However, this prayer cannot be answered because the ‘same demons’ that planned and executed the hostile acquisition also control the Security and Exchange Commission, members of the Afribank workers union should better know that now.
The PDP deputy National Chairman South-West, Chief Olabode George is the Chairman of Bank of Industry and it is alleged that he is a front for a top presidency official. The NSITF is a Federal Government controlled institution. Check out the big time equity holders of Access Bank and also look beyond some of them that are actually fronts to the big masquerades, you would simply discover that the entire saga revolves around just three or four powerful individuals, almost all of them currently in government. So what are we saying? Na the same people: the people that troublet Nigeria. #
Saint Azuh, AP Plaza Annex, Wuse II, Abuja
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