by Eze Eluchie,
Across the globe, in climes which have evolved sustainable financial
practices which serve to stimulate domestic economies, production and growth,
Banks serve a most useful purpose as they are institutions where funds can be
warehoused and advanced and deployed to entrepreneurs on conditions which
reward innovation and ultimately profit society generally.
In our traditional societies, native cooperative associations
served the role of modern Banks, congregating resources and lending to their
members as needed under conditions which ensured that capital base of the
Cooperative remained secured and the constituent members and society generally
profited therefrom.
Fast-forward to the present and what do we have in lieu of
hitherto traditional structures for wealth regeneration, provision of ad-hoc,
mid- and long-term financial needs? A consortium of opportunistic shylocks with
keys to vaults rich in deposits of the collective trod our environment, clothed
in suave suits parading a deceptive demeanor of integrity and benevolence
whilst on the lookout for entrepreneurs to suck-in and devour. Many a budding
idea have been ruined by resort to the extortionist Trojan-horse deals
inflicted on creditors by these characters leading to a situation where
steering clear from entanglement with this bunch has become a fundamental to
success for any genuine business interest.
How did we arrive at the dire situation described in the
preceding paragraph in an era where Banks in sane climes are becoming desperate
to better serve their populations with sensible fiscal policies? With the
European Central Bank, the US Federal Reserve bank and others of their ilk go
to great lengths to stress and enforce lending rates (presently at below 1%)
that encourage investments, with some experimentation with negative interest
rates, all in a bid to boost borrowing and enliven their national business
climate, their contemporaries in Nigeria shamelessly announce lending rates of
upwards of 25%, rates that can only make sense to a borrower who is in the
business of producing or trafficking on illicit substances. After ensnaring undiscerning
investors to take loans at the scandalous interest rates they offer, our fancy-dressed
shylocks (who in every sense of their words and their operational mechanisms
are no different from the notorious Italian Mafia), simply go and relax and
like the hangman, wait for when their victims default and move in with
repossession orders to liquidate.
The practices that go on in the name of banking in Nigeria
are only possible in lawless entities. Queries to these characters manning the
banking industry in Nigeria will elicit such responses as: ‘Our lending and
interest rates are governed by market forces’, ‘We need to pay our Directors
well in compliance with prevailing global trends’ and other distasteful
responses. ‘Market forces’? What happens to these so-called ‘market forces’
when the US Federal Reserve, the ECB and their counterparts in Japan and other
such climes announce, influence or set lending and borrowing rates? ‘Prevailing
global trends’ indeed! The prevailing global trends to fix lending rates below
1% no longer prevail when it comes to the Banking industry in Nigeria?
Those who allow the Banking industry to get away with the
brigandage it adopts as business practices in Nigeria can only be persons who
hate Nigeria and its people with a peculiar passion. Having destroyed virtually
all budding entrepreneurs that have had the misfortune of sourcing facilities
from them, and with a view to further perpetuate the poverty that have foisted
on Nigerians, our Bankers have resorted to granting the kleptocrats manning the
various Governments in Nigeria loans that simply disappear between the Banks
vaults and the Government Houses where their accomplices sign away future
generations of their respective populations. Some States in Nigeria (and the
Federal Government itself) are indebted to banks to sums way above total
projected incomes of over a century, without any tangible infrastructural projects
to show for the scams – debts that ensure the impoverishment of generations
unborn.
A critical part of the restructuring of the Nigerian contraption
must involve fiscal restructuring and sanitation of the Banking industry with a
view to apportioning appropriate punishment to transgressors and identifying
which financial facilities to which the future has been mortgaged are genuine
and which are scams.
Picture: ‘Arrest the Bankers’ poster at a rally against bank frauds.
No comments:
Post a Comment