Erastus Akingbola’s Trial: How Access Bank Acquired Defunct Intercontinental Bank, NDIC Official Tells Court

More startling facts has continued to emerge before a Federal High Court, Lagos as an examiner with the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), Mr Paul Alkali again on Friday revealed that Access Bank Plc owed defunct Intercontinental Bank Plc N14.2 billion as at the time Access Bank acquired it. It was like the tail swallowing the head.

Mr Alkali today continued his evidence before Justice Ayokunle Faji, the trial judge in the trial of former Managing Director of Intercontinental bank plc, Mr Erastus Akingbola on a 22 count charge that he committed N179 billion fraud as the head of the bank.

Only last week, precisely on March 16, Alkali revealed that the NDIC examiners he was part of did not recommend the sack of Akingbola by the then Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido, the just deposed Emir of Kano.

Insinuations were also made before the court last week that there may be more to Akingbola’s sack as he and Sanusi were embroiled in a tangle over allegations of demarketing by Sanusi when he was the Managing Director of First Bank Plc.

The following ensued between Akingbola’s lawyer, Prof Taiwo Osipitan SAN and Alkali last week:

Osipitan: “Tell My Lord; who was the CBN Governor as at the time of your special investigation?”

Akali: “The governor was Lamido Sanusi.”

Osipitan: “Before he became the governor of CBN, which bank’s MD was he?”

Akali: “He was MD/CEO of First Bank Nigeria Plc.”

Osipitan: “Have you heard the word ‘de-marketing’ in the banking industry?”

Akali: “Yes.”

Osipitan: “What does it mean?”

Akali: “It means using some other information to de-market your competitor.”

Osipitan: “First Bank and then Intercontinental Bank were competitors at the time in the market?”

Akali: “All banks were competitors.”

Osipitan: “You may not know that shortly before your special examination, Intercontinental Bank had cause to complain that officers of First Bank were de-marketing them, saying they would go under very soon.”

Akali: “I don’t know but I also heard…”

Osipitan: “It was after that complaint you were sent on this special mission to investigate the bank. The complaint was in April and your examination was in May.”

Akali: “I am not aware of any complaint but it was not only Intercontinental Bank that we examined.”

But today (Friday), Alkali further told the court how Access Bank acquired the much bigger Intercontinental Bank Plc.

The probe and indictment of Intercontinental Bank, as well as the removal of its then Managing Director, Dr Erastus Akingbola, happened under the watch of Lamido Sanusi as CBN governor.

he EFCC alleged that Akingbola used N179bn belonging to the defunct Intercontinental Bank for “fictitious transactions”.

Fielding questions under cross-examination by Akingbola’s lawyer, Prof. Taiwo Osipitan (SAN), Akali told the court that while going through Intercontinental Bank’s books in May 2009, his team discovered that Access Bank was indebted to Intercontinental Bank in the sum of N14.2 billion

Apart from this, he said his team also found that contrary to the law, the then Managing Director and Deputy Managing Director of Access Bank, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede and Herbert Wigwe, respectively, were directors of a private company, which was also indebted to Intercontinental Bank.

Akali said: “When you are the MD of a bank, you are not expected to be a director in any other company that is not a subsidiary of the bank. Incidentally, I was a member of the team that conducted special examination on Access Bank. I raised some issues with Access Bank with the MD and DMD of Access Bank; that they were directors of a company.

They denied the allegation; they said they resigned from the company in March 2008; but we were not satisfied with their explanation.

We told them that evidence before us showed that they were still directors of that company; and we indicted them for being directors of a company that borrowed from Intercontinental Bank.

“We indicted them in our special report for that borrowing. Incidentally, Akingbola was equally a director of two companies that borrowed from Access Bank. The companies had an outstanding balance of N9.28 billion.

“If we had examined Access Bank before examining Intercontinental Bank, we would have equally indicted Akingbola for being a director of two companies that were not subsidiaries of the bank. What they did was back-to-back borrowing.”

When Osipitan asked Akali to confirm that despite the indictment of Access Bank’s MD and MDM, the CBN still sold Intercontinental Bank to Access Bank, Akali replied: “It was long after our report that CBN sold Intercontinental Bank to Access Bank.”

Justice Ayokunle Faji adjourned till March 27 for the continuation of trial

TheGavel