Back at Wema Bank
By Anthony Akaeze
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Adebisi Omoyeni, the suspended Wema Bank boss absolved of wrong doing, asked to return to his duty post
Seven months after Adebisi Omoyeni, the group managing director of Wema Bank, was suspended from office by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, for alleged financial irregularities involving him, the apex bank has cleared him of any wrong doing. He has also been reinstated. The order recalling him came after the CBN, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC, Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, Odua Investment Company and members of the board of Wema, which were constituted to probe the matter deliberated on it.
A statement by Festus Odoko, head of corporate affairs of the CBN, said that "following a long and exhaustive meeting on Wema Bank by the CBN, NDIC, SEC, Odua Group LTD, Omoyeni and members of the board of directors of Wema Bank on the crisis that engulfed the bank and the way forward, conclusions and agreements on the road map for repositioning the bank were unanimously reached by all the parties."
The statement also indicated that the CBN would appoint three independent executive directors from outside the South-West geo-political zone to the bank’s board to strengthen the management team.
That is not all. "The joint CBN/NDIC Special Examination Report on Wema Bank shall be laid before the board of Wema Bank for immediate consideration and the board’s response/comments shall be forwarded to CBN not later than September 15, 2008." To that extent "the board and management of Wema Bank shall, under the supervision of SEC, dispose of the warehoused shares of Wema Bank (about 2.7 billion shares) in a transparent manner in order to improve Wema Bank’s liquidity position and correct the irregularities in the earlier sale of the shares."
Before he was suspended last January, Omoyeni was accused of approving N450 million housing loan for himself and increasing his housing loan by 100 percent. Such actions were considered inimical to a company that was said to be neck deep in debt. But Omoyeni denied he did any wrong and claimed that he was a victim of power play masterminded by a top official of CBN who once served as Wema Bank’s chief executive officer. He accused the former Wema Bank’s helmsman of incurring debts put at more than N12 billion as at December 2007.
As a way to prove his innocence, Omoyeni petitioned President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. But that did not stop the CBN from instituting an inquiry into the case. The investigations which commenced even before his suspension, reached its climax on August 20, with the "not guilty" verdict. Omoyeni is thus set to resume duties on September 1.
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