Why Skye Financial institution collapsed – Tunde Ayeni breaks silence 7 years after

Tunde Ayeni, former Chairman of the Board of Administrators of defunct Skye Financial institution Plc, has lastly damaged his silence on the circumstances that led to the collapse of the financial institution.

Talking throughout an interview with journalists, reported by Thisday, Ayeni defined that the downfall of Skye Financial institution was not because of managerial incompetence or poor monetary efficiency, however fairly systemic flaws and exterior forces past the board’s direct management.

“Our stage of company governance in most establishments continues to be poor on this surroundings,” he stated. “There are plenty of company deceits that result in company failures.”

Ayeni recounted incidents in his profession the place loans have been intentionally misrepresented from the outset. “I’ve seen a scenario the place credit score has been designed from the very starting to fail… made to seem like it’s a credit score for an oil and fuel enterprise, when the truth is it was for actual property,” he famous. As a non-executive director, he stated, selections have been typically made primarily based solely on the data supplied by the manager administration, limiting board oversight.

When requested whether or not political components influenced the financial institution’s collapse, Ayeni provided a guarded however telling assertion: “Nicely, to a big extent, possibly or possibly not. The purpose is that, as an skilled journalist, you’ll agree with me that in case you maintain a public workplace for one month, regardless of how prudent or clear you might sound to seem, if the powers that be need to discover one thing in opposition to you, they’ll certainly do. The identical factor applies to banking. If the regulators need to discover you culpable for sure causes, I can guarantee you that it will likely be very tough so that you can escape it.

“However there are some details which might be very tough and unwise for me to share with you at this second. I’m certain once I’m a bit older or retired from enterprise, it’ll be a lot simpler for me to take action.

“However particularly on the story of the withdrawal of the licence of Skye Financial institution, I imagine both another person or myself will inform the true story someday. All I can say for now’s merely the financial institution’s failure was not as a result of we didn’t run the financial institution properly or possibly we didn’t know what to do on the time. Neither was it that the financial institution was not doing properly. It failed as a result of the licence simply needed to be withdrawn, and it was withdrawn.”

In September 2018, Tunde Ayeni misplaced Skye Financial institution after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) revoked the lender’s working licence.

Following the choice, the Asset Administration Company of Nigeria (AMCON) was directed to recapitalize a bridge financial institution and search buyers to take over its stake. Polaris Bank Restricted was established because the bridge financial institution and took over the property and chosen liabilities of the defunct Skye Financial institution.