Jimoh Ibrahim and his bank debt advert

Sir,

In Nigeria Barrister Ibrahim Jimoh is regarded a billionaire. He had, at the wake of the audit of the first set of banks, argued that he owed Oceanic Bank N8billion (only)

as against N14billion revealed by the records submitted to the Central Bank of Nigeria by the commercial bank.

Jimoh did not only stop at trying to set the records 'right' but also took many pages of wrap-around advertisements in the print media to publish positions of his accounts with almost every bank in the country. He ended his submission by requesting that, should any other bank feels he owed it, it should say so immediately. If Ibrahim Jimoh could go that length only for people to now know that he lied, it is very unfortunate. Now it has been proven that he owe another N3billion as non-performing loan in the second batch of banks that were audited.

What I am now querying is why Jimoh Ibrahim should owe Nigerian banks whereas it was reported recently that he had established a bank in Ghana. This is in addition to another story where he was quoted to be establishing a University and a five-star Hotel in the tiny nation of Sao Tome and Principe; a country with population of about 200,000 persons. His action is that of robbing Peter to invent Paul and this could be viewed as sabotaging the Nigerian economy.

Some Nigerian businessmen seem not to understand that some of their actions are portraying our citizens as fraudulent people in the eyes of the international community. This set of businessmen must be stopped if the so-called rebranding project of the federal government is anything to reckon with.

Dr. Thomas Uduak-Abasi, ( [email protected] )

Plot 839 Ozumba Mbadiwe,
Victoria Island, Lagos State