Panic as FG plans to prosecute those responsible for Skye Bank’s failure

The Federal Government has promised to persecute all those found to be responsible for the failure of the now-defunct Skye Bank.

The Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, made this known on Friday while on a visit to the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation in Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria recalls that the Central Bank of Nigeria had on September 22, revoked the operating licence of Skye Bank Plc.

A bridge bank known as Polaris Bank was created to assume the assets and liabilities of the defunct bank.

The decision to revoke the bank’s licence was taken following the inability of its owners to increase the capital of the distressed bank which had earlier received N350 billion as intervention fund in July 2016.

The Minister directed the Managing Director of NDIC, Mr Umaru Ibrahim, to ensure that a thorough investigation is conducted to find out why the bank failed.

She said that at the end of the investigations all those found culpable in the failure of the bank would be prosecuted.

“We have to show some examples. We cannot just be bailing out banks and leaving perpetrators of the failure of these banks to go scot-free.

“Even though you, NDIC, intervene by protecting depositors, but your intervention is limited.

“You’re not able to pay back all that the depositors have. We must show some examples and this is a good one for us to start with,” the Minister said.

Ahmed stressed the need for the NDIC to continuously monitor the banks to ensure that problems were detected early and solved before they became a crisis.

(NAN)