Devoured by greed?
Ten banks were audited by the Central Bank of Nigeria. Only half of them got the pass mark. The others were said to have fallen far short of the prudent and transparent management required by law and by public trust. The remaining 14 banks in the country are now being audited. How many of these will scale through? Should half of them also require government bailouts, the entire financial industry in Nigeria may crash, taking what is left of the economy with it. Banking laws in Nigeria are tight enough to prevent the type of crisis creeping in. By law, no loan can be given by any bank without physical collateral and every bank must disclose its non-performing loans to the Central Bank promptly. Moreover, no bank may give out credit above a stated percentage of its assets. But what are laws in an environment with pervasive corruption and uncontrollable greed? Preserve of the rich About 10 years ago 20 banks collapsed, taking with them the future and, in some cases, the lives of many depo