Africa News blog
African business, politics and lifestyle
Where will Nigerian bank crisis lead?
The list published by Nigeria’s central bank of those who owe money to the banks it has just bailed out makes clear that the situation has already gone well beyond just being a banking crisis.
The list cuts across the business elite and Nigeria’s regions and also includes many politically powerful figures. (And it doesn’t even appear that all those who could have been named as directors of the debtor companies have been identified).
It raises a question as to whether so many of the great and good are simply unable to pay their debts and if so what that means for business in Nigeria as a whole? If they could pay up, then why haven’t they?
It also raises a question as to how those ‘named and shamed’ will react, particularly those with major political sway, in a country where behind the scenes manipulation is a way of life.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has set a deadline for the debtors to start coming up with money or face arrest, but its efforts to prosecute former state governors in the past were sometimes stymied and its former boss Nuhu Ribadu driven from office.
What will be the fate of Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi (left), only recently picked for the post by President Umaru Yar’Adua?
How well do you think the crisis is being handled? Please take your chance to vote below. We welcome your comments too.
How should Nigeria’s windfall oil cash be managed?
Nigeria’s revenues from oil exports have reached unprecedented levels as global crude prices rally, yet the majority of its 140 million population remain mired in poverty. Africa’s top oil producer set up an “excess crude account” five years ago to save windfall oil earnings and try to help promote long-term economic stability.
But infighting among the three tiers of government — federal, state and local — on how the revenues should be shared out has seen them squandered.
The country is starved of electricity, the roads in even its plushest suburbs are pitted with potholes, and nine out of 10 people live on less than $2 a day, according to U.N.statistics.
How should Nigeria’s oil revenues be managed? Why is the country’s infrastructure so dilapidated when its state budgets are so high? Should the country set up a sovereign wealth fund? Would it be any better managed than the existing arrangement?
i think they should do the following:
1. assemble an anti corruption force who are third party from overseas.
2. create roads and highways with help from chinese and chinese road machinery.
3. Sort out electricity, electrify @ least 3 states completely.
4. Lease a communications satellite whilst awaiting for chinese to fix their dud. Hence making faster brodabnd and telecoms.
5. Create waste plants for recycling and managing trash/sewage etc.
6. finally as ade bolaji said “invest in factories”.
The will to expose the bad guys is welcomed but it may require a lot of advocacy to avoid lack of confidence and a run on the banks.