Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
from Africa News blog:
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.
from Africa News blog:
All change for Nigeria?
Nigeria's central bank sliced through the hubris of the business elite with its $2.6 billion bailout out of five banks and the sacking of their heads in what looks as though it could be a new era for corporate governance in Africa’s most populous country.
Recently appointed Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi said lax governance had allowed the banks to become so weakly capitalised that they posed a threat to the entire system, and described the move as the beginning of a "restoration of confidence" in sub-Saharan Africa's second biggest economy.
