nvestigations have revealed that many people have a
casual attitude when it comes to deciding on which bank to deal with.
Like marriage relationship, banking relationship can make or mar an
individual or a business entity.
For example, some people choose a bank simply because their relative
or friend works in that bank. Some make the choice simply because their
client or their employer bank with such bank.
Others make the
choice because of the mouth watering promotional or marketing offers of
the bank. Such decision has made many people victims of failed banks,
with significant loss of money.
In the past when banking distress
was a common occurrence and when bank closure happened at an average of
three per year, some people became customers of a distressed bank a
month or even a week before the licence of the bank was revoked.
Don’t
choose a bank because your relative or friend is working in the bank,
as he would not work there forever or be in that branch forever.
And
when he chooses to leave the bank or is to be transferred, he would not
likely consult or inform you. Furthermore, that person, depending on
his level of responsibility may not have adequate information about the
financial health of the bank. And even if he has such information, why
should he disclose it to you. Meanwhile, the main reason why that
relative or friend wants you to choose his bank is to enable him meet
his deposit target.
The same reason applies to choosing a bank
because that is where your client or employer banks. There is no law
that says an employee must choose the bank of his employer. And choosing
the bank of your client is immaterial to the main factor in your
relationship, which is delivering quality services. Banks are major
culprits in this regard. Most of them now insist that their service
providers must open account with them.
The above is very
instructive to the millions of unbanked Nigerians who would soon have to
choose a bank, due to the vigorous pursuit of the financial inclusion
goals of the Central Bank of Nigeria. While many of them are not
educated, most of them have some level of education. Hence it is
instructive that they are fully aware of the implications of the choice
of banking relationship, and the factors to consider before making such
choice.
The first factor that should be considered is service.
Most times, people want to know if a bank is strong or weak before they
can do business with it. But besides the financial results published
annually by banks, it can be quite difficult for somebody who is not an
insider to know the health of a bank. But through the services of the
bank, and how it is delivered, you can have an idea.
The most
important issue in this regard, is to first determine the banking
services you need, or that are vital to what you do, and then inquire
for the bank that offers these services, and which ones offer it
efficiently.
In
Nigeria, nobody gets elected as president on the platform that he is
going to be an anti-corruption crusader when he gets into office.
One
thing is for sure: Muhammadu Buhari would like to be the next president
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He has tried three times and has
failed every time. Finally realizing it is a lost cause, he said he
would not try again.
But now he is persuaded to try again. His
supporters are impressed that he won 12 million votes against Goodluck
Jonathan in 2011. However, they need to be reminded that he lost to
Jonathan by over 10 million votes.
Gen. Buhari
Since
the third time did not turn out to be a charm for Buhari, what are we
to call his fourth attempt? Listening to the declaration of his
new-fangled presidential bid in Eagles’ Square, Abuja a few days ago, it
is seems this fourth time is going to be one big charade.
The
sign was provided by none other than Buhari himself. Since his one
credential is that he is a man of integrity who, as president, is
expected to wrestle corruption down to the ground, Buhari decided to
burnish his anti-corruption image by revealing that he obtained his 27.5
million naira APC nomination form with a bank loan. However, what this
declaration did was to tell Nigerians that Buhari is a pretentious
anti-corruption crusader. His Mr. Clean posture is nothing but a public
relations gimmick.
Question marks
In fairness, some of us
have known this all along. Under Buhari’s watch as Petroleum Minister
in the late 1970s, $2.8 billion (worth billions of naira today) was
missing from the NNPC account. The matter was subject to Senate
investigation under the chairmanship of Olusola Saraki in 1983. But
before the report could be dealt with, Buhari conveniently overthrew the
Shagari government in a military coup d’état.
Vera Ifudu, an NTA
newscaster, revealed that Saraki told her in an interview that the
missing money was traced to Buhari’s account at Midland Bank in London.
For this disclosure, Vera was summarily sacked by the NTA. However,
she appealed against her dismissal in court and won. She even received a
handsome financial compensation for wrongful dismissal from the NTA.
Instead
of clearing his name as a man of integrity, Buhari refused to appear
before the Oputa Panel set up to look into the matter (among under
things) by the Obasanjo administration.
Buhari claims to be an
anti-corruption crusader, nevertheless, he agreed to serve under Sani
Abacha, one of the most corrupt Heads-of-State ever in the history of
Nigeria. While there has been no proven allegation that Buhari
corruptly enriched himself as Chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund under
Abacha, it is abundantly clear that this fabled anti-corruption
crusader failed to curb the rampant corruption that prevailed in the
organization. Group Captain Usman Jibrin, a board member of PTF,
resigned from the organization in protest over Buhari’s irregular
appointments of consultants.
In 2000, the Obasanjo administration
set up an Interim Management Committee to look into the affairs of the
PTF, under the chairmanship of Haroun Adamu. The Committee discovered
that billions of naira was stolen under Buhari’s chairmanship.
Political platform
Now
the same Buhari who would not or could not curb corruption in the PTF
wants us to believe he will fight corruption as president of Nigeria.
However, he has chosen the APC as the political platform on which to
undertake this. But the APC is an unscrupulous political party that is
choc-full of corrupt politicians. It is the party of Murtala Nyako who
was impeached as governor of Adamawa State for converting state money to
personal use. It is the party where Buhari himself and others went
cap-in-hand to Otta to beg Obasanjo to be their “navigator.”
Surely
Buhari knows that he cannot fight corruption by being the presidential
candidate of the APC. Whatever anti-corruption crusading Buhari had in
him in the past must have ended when he decided to join the APC. Should
he become president, does he intend to probe his corrupt
party-members? Has he made them understand he would be coming after
them once elected? If he has, does he really expect them to help him
get elected so he can retrieve their stolen loot and send them off to
jail?
A 72 year-old man with Buhari’s experience, who was
overthrown in a preemptive coup by members of his own government, knows
that in Nigeria, nobody gets elected as president on the platform that
he is going to be an anti-corruption crusader when he gets into office.
That is a sure signal for all the politicians in all the parties to
gang up against him and make sure he never makes it.
If you really
want to be anti-corruption, you have to keep your mouth shut about your
plans until you get elected and then catch your corrupt colleagues by
surprise. You must also have resolved not to seek re-election for a
second-term. It is not only the populace, but the politicians in
particular, who insist on “stomach infrastructure.” But if you are
talking anti-corruption while still seeking the nomination of your
party, it must be because it is well known to your corrupt colleagues
that your anti-corruption stance is merely for public consumption.
Cleaning up APC
It
is not surprising, therefore, that despite all the noise about
anti-corruption coming from Buhari and his cohorts; he has failed to
fight against corruption in the APC. We did not hear him raise a voice
against the incongruity of a so-called progressive party demanding a
cynical nomination fee of 27.5 million naira for its presidential
primaries. One would have expected a truly anti-corruption crusader to
make the point that the nomination fee is unacceptable. Instead, Buhari
readily acquiesced to the requirement in order to safeguard his
all-important presidential ambitions.
Since Buhari cannot, or does
not, fight against this corrupting nomination fee in the APC, and
insist on its reduction to something far more reasonable, how can he
expect us to believe that as president in a political system with the
separation of powers; against a legislature likely to be controlled by
the PDP; he would be able to fight corruption? Somebody is fooling
somebody here. Or else, somebody is living in a cloud cuckoo land.
Charity,
they say, begins at home. If Buhari is truly anti-corruption, he
should begin his crusade in the APC. Is it progressive for a political
party in Nigeria to ask its candidates to come up with 27.5 million just
for the nomination papers for an election where only one person will
emerge as the winner? Is it not corrupt politicians that are likely to
have this type of easy-come easy-go money? Is this not an open
invitation for the winner, if he actually manages to secure election to
the presidency, to recoup this extortionate fee from public funds?
Anti-corruption bank loan
What
did anti-corruption Buhari do about this outrageous APC requirement?
This is where the whole matter becomes ridiculously implausible.
According to Buhari, rather than fight against the measure, he took out a
ban loan to pay for it.
Buhari told us about his “loan” out of
embarrassment; in a pathetic bid to validate his anti-corruption
credentials. But this so-called loan indicates that Buhari does not
understand what it means to be anti-corruption. For Buhari,
anti-corruption is a posture; it is a swagger; it is a badge; but it has
no bite and, in the usual Nigerian fashion, it will be prosecuted with
hypocrisy.
Buhari wants us to believe that he cannot afford 27.5
million naira. Nevertheless, he rides around in a bullet-proof Jeep and
maintains a convoy of Land Cruisers. He cannot afford 27.5 million
naira. Nevertheless, he declared his candidacy lavishly in Eagle
Square, Abuja. Did he also take out a bank loan for that? Four months
to a make-or-break election, Buhari would have us believe he has no
money. How does he propose to finance his presidential campaign? Is he
going to take 1 billion naira loan from the World Bank for this?
Dubious loan
Why
would a bank lend Buhari that amount for a presidential pie-in-the-sky
that failed to materialize three times in the past? Is that not likely
to be a bad loan? How long did it take for the loan to be processed?
What did he put down as anti-corruption collateral? How does he propose
to pay the money back? Mr. Integrity needs to spell all this out for
the sake of his fast-disintegrating anti-corruption credentials.
I
did not know loans are so easy to secure in Nigerian banks today.
Perhaps Buhari could introduce me to his bank manager. I would also not
mind taking this kind of soft loan. I am sure I can always come up
with some unproductive excuse or the other for it. Is such a loan even
legal today under Nigeria’s stricter banking laws?
How many honest
Nigerians can afford to give a non-refundable 27.5 million naira to a
political party, on the off-chance that they will be able to secure the
party’s presidential ticket? If they win the nomination and even get
elected president, how would they pay back the money?
Not presidential material
It
is clear that Buhari is not only lacking the money to pay for APC
nomination papers, he does not have the funds to pay for advisers, to
counsel him about what to tell the public and how to prosecute an
effective presidential campaign. His advisers might have educated him
that there is something called “fund-raising.” Surely, the most popular
politician in the North-West can find some of his ardent supporters to
give him 27 million naira. Certainly, a former governor of the Central
Bank can easily cough up the money.
Buhari wants to fight an
election that will take place in four months time. From what he tells
us, he does not have 27 million to prosecute that election now. If this
is true, he is not the right man to be president of Nigeria. For a man
who is running for election for the fourth time, that is the height of
cluelessness. It shows Buhari is lousy at marshalling resources.
Otherwise, he is fooling nobody but himself.
- See more at:
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/10/muhammadu-buhari-running-president-anti-corruption-bank-loan/#sthash.p00ZhZ31.dpuf
In
Nigeria, nobody gets elected as president on the platform that he is
going to be an anti-corruption crusader when he gets into office.
One
thing is for sure: Muhammadu Buhari would like to be the next president
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He has tried three times and has
failed every time. Finally realizing it is a lost cause, he said he
would not try again.
But now he is persuaded to try again. His
supporters are impressed that he won 12 million votes against Goodluck
Jonathan in 2011. However, they need to be reminded that he lost to
Jonathan by over 10 million votes.
Gen. Buhari
Since
the third time did not turn out to be a charm for Buhari, what are we
to call his fourth attempt? Listening to the declaration of his
new-fangled presidential bid in Eagles’ Square, Abuja a few days ago, it
is seems this fourth time is going to be one big charade.
The
sign was provided by none other than Buhari himself. Since his one
credential is that he is a man of integrity who, as president, is
expected to wrestle corruption down to the ground, Buhari decided to
burnish his anti-corruption image by revealing that he obtained his 27.5
million naira APC nomination form with a bank loan. However, what this
declaration did was to tell Nigerians that Buhari is a pretentious
anti-corruption crusader. His Mr. Clean posture is nothing but a public
relations gimmick.
Question marks
In fairness, some of us
have known this all along. Under Buhari’s watch as Petroleum Minister
in the late 1970s, $2.8 billion (worth billions of naira today) was
missing from the NNPC account. The matter was subject to Senate
investigation under the chairmanship of Olusola Saraki in 1983. But
before the report could be dealt with, Buhari conveniently overthrew the
Shagari government in a military coup d’état.
Vera Ifudu, an NTA
newscaster, revealed that Saraki told her in an interview that the
missing money was traced to Buhari’s account at Midland Bank in London.
For this disclosure, Vera was summarily sacked by the NTA. However,
she appealed against her dismissal in court and won. She even received a
handsome financial compensation for wrongful dismissal from the NTA.
Instead
of clearing his name as a man of integrity, Buhari refused to appear
before the Oputa Panel set up to look into the matter (among under
things) by the Obasanjo administration.
Buhari claims to be an
anti-corruption crusader, nevertheless, he agreed to serve under Sani
Abacha, one of the most corrupt Heads-of-State ever in the history of
Nigeria. While there has been no proven allegation that Buhari
corruptly enriched himself as Chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund under
Abacha, it is abundantly clear that this fabled anti-corruption
crusader failed to curb the rampant corruption that prevailed in the
organization. Group Captain Usman Jibrin, a board member of PTF,
resigned from the organization in protest over Buhari’s irregular
appointments of consultants.
In 2000, the Obasanjo administration
set up an Interim Management Committee to look into the affairs of the
PTF, under the chairmanship of Haroun Adamu. The Committee discovered
that billions of naira was stolen under Buhari’s chairmanship.
Political platform
Now
the same Buhari who would not or could not curb corruption in the PTF
wants us to believe he will fight corruption as president of Nigeria.
However, he has chosen the APC as the political platform on which to
undertake this. But the APC is an unscrupulous political party that is
choc-full of corrupt politicians. It is the party of Murtala Nyako who
was impeached as governor of Adamawa State for converting state money to
personal use. It is the party where Buhari himself and others went
cap-in-hand to Otta to beg Obasanjo to be their “navigator.”
Surely
Buhari knows that he cannot fight corruption by being the presidential
candidate of the APC. Whatever anti-corruption crusading Buhari had in
him in the past must have ended when he decided to join the APC. Should
he become president, does he intend to probe his corrupt
party-members? Has he made them understand he would be coming after
them once elected? If he has, does he really expect them to help him
get elected so he can retrieve their stolen loot and send them off to
jail?
A 72 year-old man with Buhari’s experience, who was
overthrown in a preemptive coup by members of his own government, knows
that in Nigeria, nobody gets elected as president on the platform that
he is going to be an anti-corruption crusader when he gets into office.
That is a sure signal for all the politicians in all the parties to
gang up against him and make sure he never makes it.
If you really
want to be anti-corruption, you have to keep your mouth shut about your
plans until you get elected and then catch your corrupt colleagues by
surprise. You must also have resolved not to seek re-election for a
second-term. It is not only the populace, but the politicians in
particular, who insist on “stomach infrastructure.” But if you are
talking anti-corruption while still seeking the nomination of your
party, it must be because it is well known to your corrupt colleagues
that your anti-corruption stance is merely for public consumption.
Cleaning up APC
It
is not surprising, therefore, that despite all the noise about
anti-corruption coming from Buhari and his cohorts; he has failed to
fight against corruption in the APC. We did not hear him raise a voice
against the incongruity of a so-called progressive party demanding a
cynical nomination fee of 27.5 million naira for its presidential
primaries. One would have expected a truly anti-corruption crusader to
make the point that the nomination fee is unacceptable. Instead, Buhari
readily acquiesced to the requirement in order to safeguard his
all-important presidential ambitions.
Since Buhari cannot, or does
not, fight against this corrupting nomination fee in the APC, and
insist on its reduction to something far more reasonable, how can he
expect us to believe that as president in a political system with the
separation of powers; against a legislature likely to be controlled by
the PDP; he would be able to fight corruption? Somebody is fooling
somebody here. Or else, somebody is living in a cloud cuckoo land.
Charity,
they say, begins at home. If Buhari is truly anti-corruption, he
should begin his crusade in the APC. Is it progressive for a political
party in Nigeria to ask its candidates to come up with 27.5 million just
for the nomination papers for an election where only one person will
emerge as the winner? Is it not corrupt politicians that are likely to
have this type of easy-come easy-go money? Is this not an open
invitation for the winner, if he actually manages to secure election to
the presidency, to recoup this extortionate fee from public funds?
Anti-corruption bank loan
What
did anti-corruption Buhari do about this outrageous APC requirement?
This is where the whole matter becomes ridiculously implausible.
According to Buhari, rather than fight against the measure, he took out a
ban loan to pay for it.
Buhari told us about his “loan” out of
embarrassment; in a pathetic bid to validate his anti-corruption
credentials. But this so-called loan indicates that Buhari does not
understand what it means to be anti-corruption. For Buhari,
anti-corruption is a posture; it is a swagger; it is a badge; but it has
no bite and, in the usual Nigerian fashion, it will be prosecuted with
hypocrisy.
Buhari wants us to believe that he cannot afford 27.5
million naira. Nevertheless, he rides around in a bullet-proof Jeep and
maintains a convoy of Land Cruisers. He cannot afford 27.5 million
naira. Nevertheless, he declared his candidacy lavishly in Eagle
Square, Abuja. Did he also take out a bank loan for that? Four months
to a make-or-break election, Buhari would have us believe he has no
money. How does he propose to finance his presidential campaign? Is he
going to take 1 billion naira loan from the World Bank for this?
Dubious loan
Why
would a bank lend Buhari that amount for a presidential pie-in-the-sky
that failed to materialize three times in the past? Is that not likely
to be a bad loan? How long did it take for the loan to be processed?
What did he put down as anti-corruption collateral? How does he propose
to pay the money back? Mr. Integrity needs to spell all this out for
the sake of his fast-disintegrating anti-corruption credentials.
I
did not know loans are so easy to secure in Nigerian banks today.
Perhaps Buhari could introduce me to his bank manager. I would also not
mind taking this kind of soft loan. I am sure I can always come up
with some unproductive excuse or the other for it. Is such a loan even
legal today under Nigeria’s stricter banking laws?
How many honest
Nigerians can afford to give a non-refundable 27.5 million naira to a
political party, on the off-chance that they will be able to secure the
party’s presidential ticket? If they win the nomination and even get
elected president, how would they pay back the money?
Not presidential material
It
is clear that Buhari is not only lacking the money to pay for APC
nomination papers, he does not have the funds to pay for advisers, to
counsel him about what to tell the public and how to prosecute an
effective presidential campaign. His advisers might have educated him
that there is something called “fund-raising.” Surely, the most popular
politician in the North-West can find some of his ardent supporters to
give him 27 million naira. Certainly, a former governor of the Central
Bank can easily cough up the money.
Buhari wants to fight an
election that will take place in four months time. From what he tells
us, he does not have 27 million to prosecute that election now. If this
is true, he is not the right man to be president of Nigeria. For a man
who is running for election for the fourth time, that is the height of
cluelessness. It shows Buhari is lousy at marshalling resources.
Otherwise, he is fooling nobody but himself.
Investigations have revealed that many people have a
casual attitude when it comes to deciding on which bank to deal with.
Like marriage relationship, banking relationship can make or mar an
individual or a business entity.
In China, language learners are given the freedom to choose their own
English names -- perhaps sometimes a little too much freedom.
In Miri, the home of Malaysia’s oil industry, Shell is training a new
generation of well engineers to help deliver major energy projects like Gumusut-Kakap .
Saint Laurent autumn/winter 2014 collection
Louis Vuitton autumn/winter 2014 collection 
Felder Felder autumn/winter 2014 collection
Clockwise from top left: Alexa semi sheer blouse, £120,
Reiss;
Baja precious necklace, £750,
Monica Vinader;
Rally Mini Pony Bag, £328,
AllSaints;
Croc effect slippers, £39.99,
Mango;
Patent short skirt, £25.99,
Zara
Clockwise from top left: Raw edge wool jumper, £79, Cos; Raindrop backpack, £419, Kenzo; Dockland plimsolls, £20, ASOS; Leather Mini Skirt, £175, Whistles
