….Court orders EFCC to hold him, bank takes desperate measures to stay afloat
These are certainly not the best of times for the Managing Director of Fidelity Bank Plc, Mr. Nnamdi Okonkwo, and the bank’s Head of Operations, Mr. Martins Izuogbe. The duo are in the battle of their lives to free themselves from The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC net following allegations of receiving $115 million from former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke. This is even as investors are losing confidence in the bank which has led to panic withdrawal, crash in share price. Lekan Okeowo reports.
When a crack team of The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, stormed the headquarters of Fidelity Bank Plc and arrested its Managing Director, Nnamdi Okonkwo and Head of Operations, Martins Izuogbe, along with some other officials, many waited with bated breaths for news on what their crime was.
It was a short wait though as news emerged that Okonkwo and his cohorts are in EFCC’s net for receiving $115 million from former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke.
Diezani, it was alleged, called on Okonkwo to help her handle some cash to be distributed to some election groups and officials in the build-up to the 2015 General Election.
She allegedly lodged $26 million into an account, and four companies — Actus Integrated, Northern Base Gas Company, Midwestern Oil and Gas and Laitan Adesanya— also paid $17.8m, $60m, $9.5m, and $1.35million respectively into the same account.
Diezani’s son, Ugonna Madueke, whom the EFCC is now looking for, allegedly gave Okonkwo a list containing the names of people who would receive the funds.
The bank’s CEO is accused of not reporting the receipt and warehousing of the cash to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU, which is a breach of the law.
To underscore the severity of the crime, EFCC went to court to obtain a remand order to keep the arrested personalities pending the outcome of investigations.
A reliable source at the EFCC revealed that EFCC had been given permission to detain the suspects for 30 days.
The source said, “On Thursday, we approached a court in Lagos, where we applied for a remand order. The court granted our prayer and gave us permission to hold them for 30 days pending the conclusion of investigations.”
Fidelity Bank has, however, denied any wrongdoing, adding that it reported its financial dealings to the appropriate authorities.
In an apparent attempt to do damage control, a statement was put out by the bank which read in part: “Our attention has been drawn to reports in the media on investigations into transactions undertaken by the Bank in the normal course of business in 2015.
“The transactions are now the subject matter of investigations by the Economic & Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
“We can confirm that the transactions were duly reported as required by the regulators and the Bank is cooperating fully with the authorities on the investigation.
“We assure our numerous stakeholders, including our customers, that we are working assiduously towards a quick resolution of the issues.
This damage control process and assurance has however done little or nothing to dispel the fear of investors and shareholders as investigations carried out by The New Diplomat reveals that panic withdrawal is the order of the day in the bank.
Long queues of customers waiting to withdraw their money is a feature of many of the branches of the bank visited by The New Diplomat.
An inside source also revealed that there has been an unusual electronic transfer of funds by customers of Fidelity Bank to other banks.
A customer of the bank who spoke on condition of anonymity said since the news of the arrest broke, he has moved his funds away from Fidelity Bank to another bank for safe keeping
That is a little compared to the looming fear of crash in the price of Fidelity Bank shares as many shareholders are beginning to put up their Fidelity Bank shares for sale.
This move, financial experts told The New Diplomat, could have dire consequence for the bank.
“Customers and investors’ confidence is at its lowest ebb now, most shareholders do not want to associate with the bank going by the magnitude of the accusations levelled against the Managing Director of the bank and some key officials of the bank hence the decision of some shareholders to offload their portfolios,” the source disclosed.
The bank however is not taking it lying low. Investigations by The New Diplomat reveal that to persuade the press to downplay the effect of the crisis on the bank, Fidelity Bank has released adverts to media houses.
All efforts to get the reaction of the bank’s Head of Corporate Communications, Ejike Ndiulo, proved abortive as he did not pick his calls nor respond to text messages sent to his phone.
How this will pan out is still to be seen; however, the general consensus is that, the coming weeks will be key to the survival of the bank.
