I have a penchant for going through major newspapers every morning, so interesting that it’s now more of a ritual to me. This act has been so ingrained in me that a day with newspapers is like a day without water, suffice to say my interest in reading newspapers and generally keeping abreast of happenings in the country was put in me by my late father.
I remember vividly he will always come home with a copy of punch newspaper and as soon as he enters his room, he calls for my attention and here you are a newspaper to read and later explain to him on the dining table.
I saw this exercise rather weird as I was still a rookie in elementary school that felt my dad hated me so much to be suffering me with newspapers instead of comic magazines.
This trend continued and became an integral part of me and if my memory serves me right at my 28th birthday I celebrated recently I got a bunch of newspapers and magazines as gifts from friends and siblings, including my dearest wife.
In those formative years, I realized I had always wanted to contribute to societal issues after a dose of newspapers, but how to go about it was beyond my imaginations, no thanks to my dad that was a very busy police officer that was busy combing the nooks and crannies of Lagos in search of criminals, which eventually earned him gift of a bullet in his stomach and guess what he got from the police hierarchy? A certificate of commendation from the then Inspector General of Police.
Somehow I knew I was to lend my voice to societal issues and as destiny would have it, I applied to study Law and was eventually given sociology. Sociology! I said to myself when I saw my name printed boldly under the column.
You reading must be wondering what this self assessing essay is all about, pretty boring to say the least, but it’s with so much pains that I woke up to write this piece. I woke up because I was sweating profusely as there was no electricity to power my rickety fan and because of all the noise of debtors coming to the office of the EFCC to make payment and stupid promises.
I kept wondering to myself, what manner of country is Nigeria? So they had the money to pay up but refused to until the distress bell rang in the five banks.
My anger knew no bounds as I watched some shameless and artificial billionaires that had to wait for the EFCC to ring the alarm bell for them to come out with money from God knows where.
Going by my calculations, in as much as these banks executives were reckless, I strongly believe that they made overtures and appeals to these chronic debtors parading and disturbing our peace with Forbes list entry and brazen display of greed on the pages of newspapers over a deal gone sour.
I also find it most worrisome that the EFCC did not see the light in arresting these people in the first place, because from a rational perspective, their refusal to pay back or service their debts, resulted to the collapse of these banks and constitute a financial crime.
Only recently I heard that billions of naira has been recovered by the EFCC within days. I kept asking myself, why did they have to wait this long to fulfill their obligations to these banks?
This is what our dear country has turned into, we are captives in our own land, we are slaves in our own kingdom, and complacency of the spirit body and soul has gradually crept into our sub consciousness.
The arithmetic is very simple, had these people paid up their debts, these banks would have been solid. For starters to get a loan from a bank with collateral that does not equal the sum is criminal, the lenders, likewise the receivers are all guilty in every sense of it.
I stand to be corrected, what we have failed to realize is that what the EFCC is doing is wrong and tantamount to administering malaria drugs to a patient suffering from high fever.
In sociological studies, we were taught that in proffering solutions to a problem, you must be able to ascertain the immediate cause of the problem before you can think of proffering a solution, and in relation to the crisis in the banking industry, I would like to ask all reading this piece, what was the cause of the collapse of these banks?
Organizations and individuals collected loans and simply refused to pay back, pure and simple. Now let’s digress a little from the roles of these banks and focus on the roles of the debtors. But why did they refuse to pay up their debts? And they were busy buying up houses in highbrow areas, driving flashy cars directly ordered from factories, all with borrowed money.
It is such a shame that we can allow these people walk freely on the streets. The funny thing is that in as much as these banks gave out these monies and charged exorbitant interest rates, the debtors are most guilty if you ask me.
This is simple common sense, the EFCC should as a matter of urgency confiscate properties of these people so they can taste the bitter pills too, because as far as a logical mind is concerned their walking scot free when it’s obvious that they are the cause of the crisis, is a mockery and an insult to the millions of depositors whose monies these people collected.
They should be cooling off with these bank executives too as it’s a clear case of an accomplice in a crime.
If we must move forward, the right procedures must be embraced in all our dealings, nobody is bigger than Nigeria and Nigeria belongs to all of us and not a select few.
This is to let those saddled with this sacred opportunity of leading us that we are watching with keen interest to see the outcome of this whole mess.
In solving a problem, the immediate cause must be identified and addressed in the spirit of fairness.
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