EFCC Begins Akingbola’s Extradition This Week by Yemi Akinsuyi

The Economic and Finan-cial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has said it will begin the process of extraditing former Chief Executive Officer of Intercontinental Bank Plc, Chief Erastus Akingbola, this week.
Akingbola had left the country for the United Kingdom in the wake of his removal as CEO of Intercontinental Bank along with four other bank managing directors namely Cecilia Ibru of Oceanic Bank International, Berth Ebong of Union Bank; Sebastian Adigwe of Afribank; and Okey Nwosu of FinBank.
The anti-graft agency had declared Akingbola wanted, asking him to come home and explain his role in the huge non-performing loans of the bank.
But the former Interconti-nental boss has remained adamant, though he is at present in court challenging the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over his removal from office.
EFCC spokesman Femi Babafemi told THISDAY yesterday that Akingbola’s extradition process would begin this week, stating that very soon he would be brought back to the country to face the charges against him.
"We will begin the extradition of Mr. Erastus Akingbola some time this week. He would be brought back to the country and taken to court on 20-count charge at the Federal High Court, Lagos," he said.
While the remaining four bank chiefs were arrested, detained, and later taken to court in respect of the report of the first audit of 10 banks by CBN, which indicted them over the huge bad debts of the banks, Akingbola was said to have taken cover in London.
The bank chiefs had allegedly plunged the five banks into a whooping N747 billion debt and EFCC has since moved in to recover part of the debts and those of the other banks found wanting in the audit exercise.
Meanwhile, the anti-graft body has described the allegation that it is taking 10 per cent of funds recovered for the troubled banks as commission as a blatant lie and cheap blackmail.
The commission said such cannot stop it from helping in the sanitisation of the financial
sector.
In a statement by its spokesman, Babafemi, EFCC also described the accusation as not only ridiculous, but a well-scripted falsehood designed to create a distraction from the ongoing prosecution and investigation of those that had abused their positions and betrayed depositors.
Babafemi said: “Information available to the commission shows that some persons that have felt uncomfortable with the involvement of the EFCC in the bank sanitisation efforts, especially those that have criminally lived big on depositors savings and those that have lost their debt recovery briefs from their collaborators in the banks, have been sponsoring this falsehood hoping it will stick and stop the commission from forging ahead in their prosecution.
‘For the avoidance of doubt and the benefit of the public, the commission has not at any time demanded or collected any cut in whatever form from any bank over funds so far recovered for the bailed-out banks or any other. As such, attempts to blackmail the EFCC through sponsored reports cannot achieve the expected result of the sponsors, rather they will serve as an elixir in our determination to dig deeper into the rot the sponsors of the blackmail have created for their benefit and that of their collaborators.
“It should be noted that the commission is propelled to go this far in the bank sanitisation effort not as a result of any monetary gain, which is really non-existing, but because of the need to safeguard our nation’s economic stability along with other stakeholders".
Babafemi said Section 7 (2) of the Act establishing the commission states that the EFCC “shall be the coordinating agency for the enforcement of the provisions” of the Failed Banks (Recovery of Debts) and Financial Malpractices in Banks Act 1994 and the Banks and other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) 1991.
"These two laws alone should suffice to justify the involvement of an organization like the EFCC in the bank cleansing exercise and the recovery of loans by the Central Bank of Nigeria. However, it may be necessary to go beyond that. The general issues arising from the exercise in Nigeria have shown that margin loans, other forms of loan facilities and infraction by lenders are the critical areas that rogues within the system utilized.
"A simple loan facility does not at face value invite the EFCC. However, where the loan process from application, through processing, to approval, disbursement, utilization and finally repayment has a criminal flavour, then the EFCC will be involved because a criminal law has been flouted. The scenarios that have justified our involvement are Loan Application Stage: customer presents that it wants a loan for working capital purposes but utilizes the loan for private use. That is obtaining by false pretences and the EFCC established several such cases; Loan Processing Stage: officers of the bank are compromised and recommend a loan, which the fundamentals and cash flow would ordinarily not have supported; Loan Approval Stage: chief executive of a bank approving loans that have been turned down by the credit committee of the board of directors, and Loan Disbursement Stage: what if part of the disbursement went into private pockets and not the purported customer? This is a classic case of money laundering that the EFCC established in respect of several accounts.
“Others include Loan Utilization Stage: utilizing the loan to mop up the bank’s shares (Contravenes BOFIA, which criminalizes it) which we have discovered in many instances; Repayment Stage: where the terms of the loan states that the cash flow from the business financed is supposed to be paid to the bank but borrower diverts same. It is criminal diversion of funds, and Collateralization Stage: contrary to the banks’ own credit policies, undeserving companies were given unsecured loans. In a single case, an unsecured loan of about $100 million was availed to a company whose balance sheet size and cash flow would not support even a secured loan for that amount.”
The investigations, according to the statement, also established the existence of fictitious collateral and customers criminally tampering with the collateral given or even a bank accepting collateral unknown to law or not legally viable.
Babafemi said in view of this explanation, the commission would in no way succumb to any blackmail “sponsored by self-serving individuals over ongoing investigation and prosecution of bank executives and defaulters. We see their campaign of calumny as a challenge to dig deeper into their criminal records.”

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