John Ebodaghe: A Great Reformer
John Ebodaghe, managing director and chief executive of the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC is a competent and dependable patriot. Since 1988, Ebodaghe has handled the affairs of the NDIC with great vision and candour. The NDIC boss, whose experience in the banking and financial sector spans more than 43 years has his major strength in team approach to management. He insists the approach has always produced excellent results. "I am only at the head," he said. At the NDIC he says, "we all work as a family having at the back of our minds three key points–compromise, consensus and consultation. This approach has moved NDIC forward."
The NDIC, a product of the 1984 Central Bank of Nigeria Committee of which Ebodaghe was a member, was set up primarily to work out guidelines for the establishment of a deposit insurance scheme that would ensure safe and reliable banking system for Nigeria. The corporation is statutorily required to insure bank deposits against any event of bank failures.
The NDIC is today charged with the responsibility of implementing the failed banks and financial malpractices decree. It had, over the years, put in place a machinery to restore sanity to the banking industry. The Ebodaghe-led NDIC has identified and prosecuted some perpetrators of banking frauds irrespective of the status of such persons or organisations. As a result, some notable Nigerians are currently behind bars or being prosecuted for their roles which forced some banks to go under. Some have been forced to pay back their ill-gotten wealth.
In an apparent recognition of the good work done in the past by NDIC, the federal government in its 1997 budget granted the corporation autonomy from CBN. With the autonomy, the corporation has been working tirelessly at overhauling the entire banking and financial system in the country. "What we want to achieve," said Ebodaghe, "is a financial sector that commands confidence and respect, devoid of dubious tendencies that may lead to distress." He went on: "checking distress in the banking sector must be a continuous exercise bearing in mind the negative effects of financial sector distress."
This is why the NDIC has strengthened its banking sector investigations and examination arms to enable them do their jobs satisfactorily and raise early alarm when a trace of distress is noticed in any bank. But one area where the NDIC is much criticised is the flat payment of the sum of N50,000.00 to all categories of depositors in failed banks. But Ebodaghe says it is possible for depositors to collect all their deposits in a failed bank but cautions that availability of funds as determined by the assets of a given failed bank would form the bedrock of what would be paid to depositors.
He calmed down the anxieties of depositors in the 26 liquidated banks saying the delay in payment to depositors were not deliberate. He said payment would start after proper book keeping, analysis of financial statements as well as valuation of assets are completed. He said the 26 liquidated banks had 312 offices nation-wide and therefore posed enormous logistics problems.
The NDIC has already designated 91 payments centres.
Newswatch June 29, 1998
" Newswatch 1998