Posted by Politics X on September 3, 2009 at 11:18pm
SOMETHING DO YOU !Oil executive, Jimoh Ibrahim, who is the chief executive of Global Fleet Industries Ltd, found himself dealing with a new set of issues on Thursday in Abuja, when federal authorities informed him to shelve his planned business trip abroad because his name has been listed on a new travel advisory that security agents issued on Wednesday.Top security officers said in Abuja that the advisory was initiated as “a measure to prevent some of the very bad debtors from escaping,” adding that “some of the debtors are really owing so much that they can afford to run away and abandon whatever they have in the country.”Mr. Ibrahim and 200 other individuals, including top businessman, Azeez Arisekola Alao, were barred from travelling until they clear their names in the N746 billion debt owed the five ailing banks that the Central Bank of Nigeria said accounted for more than 90 percent of the funds drawn from the CBN’s emergency expanded discount window, and had exposure to more than 50 percent of the credit to both the capital markets and oil marketing sectors.Mr. Ibrahim whose family left for the United Kingdom on Wednesday without him, gave a different twist to the travel ban in a phone interview last night, saying it’s not a ban targeted at him but a general advisory that offered a window of ease for those who seek clearance from their banks. “It’s not just me. The CBN asked all the people whose names were published by the CBN not to travel.” He said adding that “The instruction is that if you want to travel, you have to obtain clearance from your bank.”Mr. Ibrahim refused to say if he was at the airport Thursday, but he claimed that his pilot merely took his aircraft for servicing and that the aircraft is due back this weekend. “My pilot has taken the aircraft for servicing. He left Lagos for London today (Thursday) and will be back by this weekend. The aircraft is in Luton airport,” Mr. Ibrahim stated.He said: “Nobody stopped me from travelling. In fact, I will be in England next week and nobody will stop me.”Who issued the directive?But in Abuja, federal agencies and law enforcement units at the core of the investigations traded excuses on Thursday, unwilling to accept responsibility as to who initiated the travel ban.Mohammed Abdullahi, spokesman for the Central bank of Nigeria said “the notice is not from the CBN. The issue is with the EFCC. Maybe you should confirm from the EFCC,” but Femi Babafemi, spokesman for the EFCC, said that “there is no official statement from the EFCC.” sources also gathered that the State Security Service [SSS] denied issuing the advisory, pointing fingers at the EFCC and the CBN as the agencies to clear the air.Airport authorities also claimed ignorance about the advisory. “We are not aware of any such advisory,” said Sam Adurogboye, spokesman for the National Civil Aviation Authority.Following the recent regulatory action of the Central Bank of Nigeria on the five banks, the CBN requested defaulting customers of the affected banks “to pay without further delay their indebtedness, failing which the banks will take all appropriate legal actions to ensure repayment.”To save the banks from going under, the CBN fired all their chief executives and injected an initial N420 billion life line to keep them alive.Re Adapted from Next online
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