|
Jigawa Debt: Between Turaki, Guaranty Trust Bank And Daily Trust Newspaper- A Case Of Executive Irresponsibility vs. Irresponsible Transaction By Jibo Nura
Daily Trust’s editorial of 3rd July 2007 on “Jigawa govt. and GTB: A case of irresponsible transaction”, which appeared on page 56 of the Newspaper, was misleading. From the beginning one might thought that the paper would give a rational analysis of the debt crisis that bedeviled Jigawa State but it controversially seeked to play to the gallery.
It is a well known fact that Commercial banks such as Guarantee Trust has specific functions as entrenched in its own professional banking operations, services, conduct and ethics. What Daily Trust Newspaper and its editorial teams seem to have lacked in their editorial analysis of July 3rd, 2007, is proper understanding of such functions, mode of operations, and even roles of commercial banks such as the Guarantee Trust.
As managers of private finances and financial custodians, the Guarantee Trust Bank’s philosophy is driven by the need to assist in the growth and transformation of the business and commercial activities of all people regardless of whether such a people are in organization, government agency, social club, football team, mosque, church, family or corporation. The bank’s objectives cover mainly general merchandising, organized industrial and commercial concerns. Indeed, the major aim of the bank is continuous development of suitable cost effective services tailored to meet the identified and ever-changing needs of its customers. Other forms of financing and services by the bank include: personal loans, overdraft, project financing, loan syndication, financial advisory service, domiciliary accounts and western union money transfer etc.
It therefore becomes imperative for Daily Trust Newspaper to know that the operational efficiency, upon which Guarantee Trust Bank is based, combines technical and economic efficiencies. As managers with high financial innovative capacity, the GT Bank controls withdrawing and depositing of its entire customers by properly allocating resources and preventing waste and at the same time provides, a favourable and conducive atmosphere that allows customers to continually see the Bank as the most acceptable medium for their transaction.
It is in the light of these, that the past administration of Governor Dr. Alhaji Ibrahim Saminu, Turakin Hausa, chose the Guarantee Trust as its official bank. The Turaki government then entrusted all its financial affairs to Guarantee Trust Bank with the sole intent of having value for money for Jigawa State. Even Daily Trust’s investigations as reported on June 27, 2007 by one of its reporters, Ahmed Abubakar, have revealed that Governor Turaki’s administration used to collect loans, temporary overdraft and contingent liabilities from Guarantee Trust Bank. But even with this kind of revelation coming from Daily Trust, the paper maliciously decides to, using editorial hullabaloo, paint the image of the Guarantee Trust Bank in black colour.
Perhaps, for the sake of analytical simplicity, one needs to remind Daily Trust Newspaper and its publishers of some very important points by asking some cardinal questions. For example, was it not the media trust, publishers of Daily/ Weekly Trusts Newspapers that was engaged in “advertorial” venture with Turaki over the so-called “silent revolutions in Jigawa”, which were colourfully published in Weekly Trust Newspaper with tax-payers money for several weeks; knowing fully that such “revolutions” were nothing but sheer deception and propagandists shenanigans? The money that the media trust collected from the past administration of Turaki on those so-called “silent revolutions”, which have never revolutionized the people of Jigawa, could have been used in the payment of, at least 1000 people pensioners of Jigawa State.
Again, was it not the same media trust that paraded Saminu Turaki as somebody who has done more than enough to his people? The same media trust in its Daily Newspaper editorial of July 3rd, 2007 want to have us believe that its business partner (Turaki) is known to be reckless and incompetent in the management of funds. What an irony!
Hence, if Daily Trust Newspaper can have the professional temerity to label Guarantee Trust Bank as managers who “want to court public sympathy by portraying themselves as a set of do-gooders”, then one can also label Daily Trust and its publishers as unprofessional and unethical media house who engage in not only irresponsible transaction but also any kind of junk business provided the money is right.
Left to me, but Daily Trust’s editorial of July 3rd 2007 is nothing but an expository essay that tried to explain the case of those robbers who attempted to rob Peter and use the money in paying Paul. And somehow the essay, in my view, missed out some points, which the editorial team writers need to immediately sort out, at least for smooth flow.
(To be Continuued).
Jibo Nura, is a Quantity Surveyor who lives in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. Contact Nura at: jibonura@yahoo.com |