Ibrahim Jimoh and his bank debt adverts

Sir, In Nigeria Barrister Ibrahim Jimoh is regarded a billionaire. He had, at the wake of the audit of the first set of banks, argued that he owed Oceanic Bank N8billion (only) as against N14billion revealed by the records submitted to the Central Bank of Nigeria by the commercial bank.
Jimoh did not only stop at trying to set the records ‘right’ but also took many pages of wrap-around advertisements in the print media to publish positions of his accounts with almost every bank in the country. He ended his submission by requesting that, should any other bank feels he owed it, it should say so immediately. If Ibrahim Jimoh could go that length only for people to now know that he lied, it is very unfortunate. Now it has been proven that he owe another N3billion as non-performing loan in the second batch of banks that were audited.
What I am now querying is why Jimoh Ibrahim should owe Nigerian banks whereas it was reported recently that he had established a bank in Ghana. This is in addition to another story where he was quoted to be establishing a University and a five-star Hotel in the tiny nation of Sao Tome and Principe; a country with population of about 200,000 persons. His action is that of robbing Peter to invent Paul and this could be viewed as sabotaging the Nigerian economy.
Some Nigerian businessmen seem not to understand that some of their actions are portraying our citizens as fraudulent people in the eyes of the international community. This set of businessmen must be stopped if the so-called rebranding project of the federal government is anything to reckon with.

CBN publishes new list of five troubled banks’ debtors

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday published a long list – 600 names in all, of non-performing debts – owed mostly by politicians, entrepreneurs and shareholders/directors – whose companies secured loans totalling N450 billion from five banks. The banks - BankPHB Plc, Equitorial Trust Bank, Spring Bank Plc, Wema Bank Plc and Unity Bank Plc - were those found wanting in the last round of audit exercise embarked on by the banking watchdog.
This culminated in the sack and replacement of the managing directors and executive directors of the first three banks said to be in “grave situation” two weeks ago. The two others were asked to recapitalise by June 2010.
On the roll of multi-billion debts are frontline businessmen, corporate giants and manufacturers as well as notable politicians. They are directors of the debtor companies. The apex bank, in a statement issued by its spokesman Mohammed Abdullahi, noted that the list is for the un-performing loans of N100million and above in Bank PHB, Wema Bank, Spring Bank, Unity Bank and Equitorial Trust Bank (ETB) as at June 30.
The list is published in an advertorial today.
The CBN had on October 2, 2009 fired the Chief Executive Officers of Equitorial Trust Bank, Spring Bank, and Bank PHB. It ordered Unity Bank Plc to recapitalise before June 30, next year. WEMA Bank was also directed to recapitalise.