It’s time for Pres. Buhari to enter the confession Box – and hear the confessions of Bank executives!
There is a quick and easy way to get to Hell.
Die with an unconfessed mortal sin on your conscience. At least, that’s what those of the Catholic faith believe.
However, to escape such damnation, the church offers the sacrament of reconciliation or confession— a habitual process where you go before a priest and unload your transgressions of the past week, months or years since last time you performed the same rite. In return for your contrition, the priest absolved of your sins, usually with a penalty to recite the Hail Mary prayer and other common daily prayers, a couple of times – depending on the gravity of your sins.
The psychological and/or spiritual relief which comes with dumping your bundle of sins at the church sanctuary, bequeath confessors with a holistic sense of purity and restoration to the innocence of a new born! A life renewed. A better person with a clean slate free of “sins”.
One sector of Nigeria society in dire need for such absolution and renewal is the banking sector.
Truth be told, the Managing Directors (MDs) of most commercial Banks in Nigeria have wandered too far and deep into the odious swamp of corruption in their quest to meet set targets. Their lot is a pitiable sight. Here’s a group that is delegated by shareholders and “pressurized” by a dreadful business landscape to conjure near impossible deliverables by any means possible, even outside of actual banking practices.
Often, the line between good or evil, clean or dirty, lawful or criminal, is utterly blurred and transgressed with impunity in Nigeria’s banking circles. The overwhelming temptation to engage in felonious banking is hurried along by enticingly juicy rewards towards a single goal – to be counted amongst those who “triumphed” in spite of all odds, and now wine and dine at the top – the Jim Ovia or Tony Elumelu – who once declared that only in Nigeria is his story even possible. Yet, the path to such “greatness” is littered with broken dreams, and disgraced bankers who once held sway at the top before crashing down into ignominy.
Because the business of banking interfaces with government at many levels, relationships that bank bosses develop with Nigeria public officials is unwieldy, systemic and have since crossed into the incestuous. Even in the private sector, bankers go to the extremes, and would accept deposits from a corpse claiming it had a pulse at the time. That extreme is hassled into the illogical when, in the process of developing banking relationship with government officials, many bank MDs will do anything but change their names, including engagement in criminal subterfuge and lawlessness that they considered part of doing business – that is, enabling practitioners of corruption to circumvent money laundering laws and beat authorities dragnet.
If topical reports are anything to go by, an alarming number of bank chief executives are already spending far more time with investigators in place of overseeing their banks as exemplified by the case of the former MD of Fidelity Bank, Nnamdi Okonkwo, whose alleged transgressions against banking ethos include receiving $115 million cash in deposits to the bank from former Petroleum Resources Minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke, and disbursement of same funds to electoral officials
Perhaps, it’s time for Pres. Buhari to enter the confession Box – and hear the confessions of Bank executives!
The stratagem of inviting Bank bosses for a voluntary confession of their misdeeds is a weathered technique that saves resources, time, and converges both investigative and prosecution efforts at the jugular of corruption as over 90% of official heists go through the banking system.
The agenda. Confession or full disclosure of acts or omissions that aided official heists – especially those that government is currently unaware of, and/or were never reported and investigated by law enforcement agencies.
And the benefits. In exchange for their cooperation and contrition, government can offer immunity against prosecution, and reduced sanctions that may, perhaps save their careers – to go and sin no more!
But for those who choose to brave the odds and refuse cooperation with government, the severity of prosecution to the full extent of the law should be applied, cumulating in long jail time as well as career impairment to the extent that they may never be allowed near any banking or financial profession, stripped of any official awards and recognitions.
To be clear, this proposal is not about dismantling Bank-Client confidentiality privilege, or disclosing privacy information about clients. What is being advocated is commonplace reporting of suspicious, illegal or outright fraudulent transactions which by law ought to already have been reported but were compromised; perhaps with cooperation from banking officials. Moreover, it is standard practice globally for government to “encourage” and sometimes, arm twist financial institutions to deliver information in matters of national security or help law enforcement bring culprits to justice.
For bank chiefs with odious “sins” to unload, securing a stay-out-of-jail card hardly count as absolution. Their collaboration with looters to stash blood money earmarked for infrastructural projects that turn roads into deathtraps and hospitals into mortuaries, will need far more than a few Hail Mary prayers of penance to cleanse their conscience of the mass of blameless citizens sent to their early graves as a direct consequence of their greed.
Pres. Buhari’s sloganeering to “kill corruption before it kills Nigeria” cannot gain traction unless Bank executives become team players in the fight against corruption. Not surprisingly, most bank bosses will be unwilling as it is far easier to convert a Fulani man to Igbo than to discover a Bank in Nigeria that has not soiled its fingers in the cesspool of public corruption. This singular reason; resistance to change, highlights the existential need why Pres. Buhari’s administration should have a sit-down with financial institutions chief executives on the matter of enabling corruption.
Until financial institutions are herded into the fight against corruption, willingly or unwillingly, the current fight will remain nothing more than shadow boxing.
Emma Adoghe
Miami, FL.
