By Onyewuchi Ojinnaka
The trial of former Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of defunct International Bank Plc, Dr Erastus Akingbola continued on Friday April 20 with cross examination of the first prosecution witness Mr Paul Akali by counsel to Akingbola, Professor Taiwo Oshipitan (SAN).
Dr Erastus Akingbola is standing trial before Justice Ayokunle Faji of a Federal High Court, sitting in Lagos, Nigeria on alleged charge of granting unsecured credit facilities worth billions of Naira to various companies.
He is being tried by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). According to EFCC, the alleged offence violates Section 14 (1) of the Money Laundering Act of 2004.
At the resumed cross examination by the defence counsel on Friday, Mr. Akali told the court that the report used in the removal of Akingbola by Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) and Nigerian Deposits Insurance Corporation (NDIC) were not perfect.
Akali also told the court that as at the time the bank was taken over by the CBN and NDIC, it was not a failed bank.
Akali, an official of Nigerian Deposits Insurance Corporation (NDIC) made the assertions while answering questions put to him by Professor Oshipitan (SAN) counsel to Dr Akingbola.
“Our report is not perfect, our report cannot be error free, if our report achieved 75 percent we’re good. But we tried as humanly possible to minimise errors”.
The EFCC witness also confirmed to the court that the twelve recommendations in his team’s Special Examination Report, did not include criminal prosecution of Dr. Akingbola.
When asked by Professor Oshipitan (SAN) if a copy of the report was given to Dr. Akingbola or if he came across any document showing that NDIC or CBN sent the report to Akingbola, he replied that it is not his responsibility to do so.
The witness who had at last proceedings told the court that his team’s report did not recommend Dr. Akingbola’s removal as the bank’s CEO and taking over of the bank by CBN and NDIC, however told the court on Friday that the decision to remove the CEO and take over the bank may not solely have been based on his special examination team’s report.
“Our report is not only what the CBN and NDIC relied on to take their decision. They also usually apply other sources to arrive at their decision
“They could use an offsite report, CBN discount window, bank’s supervision report and others, but I don’t know if offsite report was used in this case”, he said.
When shown a copy of his team’s report which has been admitted by the court, to explain the meaning of ‘P’ in each column of the document, the witness said the ‘P’ means ‘performing’, indicating that loans allegedly taken by some top customers of the bank were still performing as at the time the bank was taken over.
Though, Akali explained that focus of the column despite being marked ‘P’ was to show top hundred users of funds and not necessarily an analysis to confirm that the loans were performing.