Zainab Ahmed: We’ll prosecute all those responsible for Skye Bank’s failure

Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance, says all those responsible for the failure of Skye Bank will be prosecuted.

The minister made this known on Friday when she paid a courtesy visit to the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) in Abuja.

The Central Bank of Nigeria had revoked the operating license of the bank saying it could no longer survive on its indefinite interventions.

A bridge bank, Polaris Bank, was created to take over the assets and liabilities of the bank.

She directed Umaru Ibrahim, NDIC’s managing director/CEO, to ensure that a thorough investigation is carried out on the failure of the bank.

“The example of the recently wound-up Skye Bank, now Polaris Bank is something we would look into. We would find out what happened. Your investigation must be thorough, we are going to hold whoever is responsible for the failure of that bank,” the minister said.

“We have to show some examples, we can not just be bailing out banks and leaving perpetrators of the failure of these banks to just go scot-free. Even though you 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.”

Ahmed said NDIC must continue monitoring banks so that problems are detected and solved early.

“The role that you have in monitoring banks should be continuous, because if you capture these issues early, there is a better chance of us protecting these banks, protecting shareholders and depositors,” she said.

Ahmed said the job of the NDIC is to ensure capital adequacy and profitability within the banking system. She urged the corporation to work with the CBN to reduce the number of unbanked Nigerians.