Posted by By Ayodele Aminu on
The immediate past Vice Chairman/CEO of Gulf Bank of Nigeria Plc, Mr. Babajide Rogers has been arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commis-sion (EFCC) over an alleged N7.5 billion theft.
The immediate past Vice Chairman/CEO of Gulf Bank of Nigeria Plc, Mr. Babajide Rogers has been arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commis-sion (EFCC) over an alleged N7.5 billion theft.
His arrest, the second since he was removed from office, THISDAY gathered, was sequel to the petition written to the EFCC by the Chairman of the bank, Major General James Oluleye (rtd.), alleging that Rogers during his tenure collected funds totaling N7.5 billion from some government parastatals and refused to remit same.
'As at January 2003, Rogers had collected N5.9 billion on behalf of NNPC as a collection bank which he failed to remit to NNPC account. The N5.9 billion could not be traced and when directors of the bank required from Rogers the fate of the missing money, he could not account for it," the Chairman stated in the petition.
Besides, he noted that Rogers also collected N34 million from the Nigerian Customs Service, N843 million from the Federal Internal Revenue Service (FIRS) and N749 million from the Lagos State Government.
'All these collections were not remitted to the owners and they had not been traced and Rogers had suppressed that state of affairs from the board of directors.
'By April 2005, the bank's shareholders' fund had been totally depleted whereas, the bank's last audited accounts showed that the shareholders' fund stood at N5.6 billion as February 29, 2004," the Chairman disclosed.
Given these scenarios, Oluleye maintained that 'Mr. Rogers has abused the bank's credit process through unilateral granting of unauthorised credit, insider abuse, and violation of single obligor limit and other manipulation of the bank's credit policies."
Rogers who had been the MD/CEO of the Gulf Bank since 1993, it would be recalled, was removed by the board of directors last April and replaced with Pastor Michael Okueyungbo who was then Executive Director in charge of Marketing and Retail Banking.
Gulf Bank, which was said to have been overtrading, has been facing a lot of challenges even before the on going consolidation in the banking industry. The situation was said to have deteriorated when the consolidation began.
But with the change of baton, the bank under leadership of Okueyungbo, a seasoned banker with over 20 years of diverse experience in the banking sector, has undertaken a number of bold measures and strategic initiatives, which have seen it returning to the path of stability and progression.
The bank has returned to clearing and the confidence of customers is gradually being restored as the bank is now in a better position to meet the expectations of its stakeholders.
Gulf Bank until about four months ago was one of the five banks (Allstates Trust Bank, Hallmark Bank, Lion Bank and Universal Trust Bank) in the First Consolidated Bank of Nigeria. The group had emerged the first set of banks to kick-start the on going consolidation in industry with the signing of a Memorandum of Understan-ding (MoU) in September last year.
But when the incumbent helmsman came on board, he pulled Gulf Bank out of the First Consolidated Bank Group and went ahead to sign a MoU with Union Bank of Nigeria Plc.