How Access Bank Ruined Erastus Akingbola to Acquire Intercontinental Bank

There are discrepancies going on in the sale of Intercontinental Bank Plc to Access Bank by the Central Bank of Nigeria. Some accusers are asking why the Central Bank Governor, Malam Sanusi Lamido sold Intercontinental Bank Plc to the Managing Director of Access Bank, Aig-Aigboje Imoukhuede, even when he was listed as one of the biggest debtors of Intercontinental bank Plc.

One of the reasons why former Intercontinental bank boss, Erastus Akingbola went into crisis cannot be far-fetched from Access bank’s many debts and even while that was on going, Aig- Aigboye Imoukhuede’s name which was mentioned amongst the bank’s biggest debtors was carefully swept under the carpet due to his closeness with the CBN Governor.

Aig- Aigboye Imoukhuede and his deputy, Hubert Wigwe are said to have owed Intercontinental Bank to the tune of N10.3B via corporate entity United Alliance Company. The enterprise - Imoukhuede and Wigwe as Directors- had obtained a loan facility of N16.2B from Intercontinental Bank. The loan was reduced to 10.3B as at March 2010- and a new repayment agreement that pegged the interest rate at 18% and loan security to include 894,690,600 units of Access Bank 'as well as joint and several personal guarantees of the two' were reached.

According to the accusers, ‘how can CBN sell out Intercontinental Bank Plc to its debtors? Suddenly they are buying over their creditor for an amount listed as the bank’s quarterly profit’.

As one of the most influential bank MD at the moment, Aig-Aigboje Imoukhuede was fast to beat Senator Bukola Saraki’s move to take over Intercontinental bank Plc, with Malam Sanusi Lamido’s help.

Many of those who know the internal workings of Intercontinental and Access Banks are yet to come to terms with how Aig-Imokhuede, who has asked for extension of repayment over and over would offer to buy the bank over and Malam Sanusi Lamido would go ahead to sell the whole Bank to him at a ridiculous N50 billion when even the quarterly profit of Intercontinental Bank is more than 50billion Naira.

Accusing fingers at impropriety in the whole process is yet to desist. While proper investigation in the whole process is increasing with the fresh petitions to the E.F.C.C, the National Assembly and other relevant authorities are mounting by the minute.

There are investigations going on to review the whole process and concerned parties are anxiously waiting for the outcome, an insider reveals.