The Nigerian anti-graft agency said Thursday it would enlist the support of Interpol to repatriate any fleeing bank chiefs or debtors to enable them face economic charges.
One of the bank chiefs, Erastus Akingbola, declared wanted on Sunday and who is abroad, will be repatriated through the help of Interpol, the head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Farida Waziri, told journalists.
“We learnt he is abroad and we are going to start the process of bringing him back to justice. He is the only one who has escaped justice so far. But we are going to bring him back through the Interpol system,” said Waziri, a former top police officer.
Akingbola, ex-head of the Intercontinental Bank plc, was one of the two former bank chiefs declared wanted by the EFCC at the weekend. The other is Cecilia Ibru, erstwhile head of Oceanic Bank plc, who surrendered herself to the agency on Wednesday and has since been detained.
“The two former bank executives are wanted in connection with fraudulent abuse of credit process, insider trading, capital market manipulation and money laundering running into billions of Naira,” an EFCC statement had said.
The EFCC has in the past 24 hours arrested 16 bank chiefs and 68 bank debtors to the five ailing banks whose management was sacked about two weeks ago.
About 25.5 billion naira (166.5 million dollars, 116.7 million euros) has been recovered so far from debtors of the five failing banks, she said.
The central bank put the total loan portfolio of the five ailing banks — Afribank, Intercontinental Bank, Union Bank, Oceanic Bank and Finbank — at 2.8 trillion naira.