ABUJA – The Chief Judge of Federal High Court, Justice Ibrahim Auta, has said the judiciary and Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) are indispensable partners in ensuring financial system stability.
Auta spoke as the Chairman of a one-day seminar organised for judges of the Federal High Court by the NDIC in collaboration with the court in Abuja.
The theme of the fourth edition of the seminar held in conjunction with NDIC was “2015 Annual Sensitisation Seminar for Judges of the Federal High Court’’.
According to him, the judiciary is an important stakeholder which has a critical role to play in ensuring the maintenance of depositors’ confidence and financial system stability in Nigeria.
“Our unique court is constitutionally reposed with exclusive jurisdiction in respect to Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation activities.
“We are, therefore, integral and certainly indispensable, to the holistic implementation, realisation and accomplishment of the NDIC mandates as provided in the NDIC Act.
“The objectives of this programme are being achieved; judges are now better informed not merely on NDIC operations, but on the dynamics of financial services and, indeed, the economy as a whole,’’ Auta said.
The chief judge also said that judges were now better positioned to deal with complex financial disputes and developing core competences in banking matters, culminating in quicker justice delivery.
Auta said that apart from a robust legal framework and structure of the banking system, there were other considerations critical to NDIC’s role in ensuring financial system stability.
These, he said, included macro-economic stability, soundness of the financial system and high threshold of supervision and regulations.
He observed that NDIC’s current efforts at the National Assembly aimed at amending its extant laws was evidence of the recognition of the feedback from the judiciary at the annual seminar.
“When eventually passed into law, the revised NDIC Act will certainly complement the judiciary in the rationalisation of the Deposit Insurance Jurisprudence,’’ he said.
He, therefore, called on the corporation to further initiate and recommend stiffer penalties that were necessary to curb the fraudulent activities of uninsured banks, otherwise called “wonder banks’’ in Nigeria.
NDIC Managing Director Umaru Ibrahim in his keynote address said the aim of the seminar was for stakeholders to brainstorm on the challenges of Nigerian deposit insurance law and practice.
“The corporation has identified various important stakeholders and has made efforts to collaborate on issues that pertain to the stability of the Nigerian financial system, and the Federal High Court is one of such stakeholders.
“We have committed partners in the Nigerian Bench and Bar in our endeavor of becoming one of the leading deposit insurers in the world,’’ Ibrahim said.
Ibrahim noted that NDIC had achieved its goals through better informed court judgments, encouraging feedback from the Bar and Bench, and increased awareness on deposit insurance dynamics.
