As a result of the over two weeks arrest and detention without charges brought against the concerned bankers, Banks national wide are threatening to go on strike to express their exasperation over the security agency's manner of handling the matter.
Senior personnel of 18 Nigerian banks have been languishing in
detention in the holding facility of the Department of State
Services for almost two weeks over allegations of terrorist financing and money laundering alleged by government functionaries to have been perpetrated by
Aminu Suleiman Lamido, son of Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji
Sule Lamido. Aminu and his brother, Mustapha Lamido were arrested by Economic and financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, over an alleged N10 billion fraud.
They were arrested in Kano and flown to Abuja and have since been under interrogation at the Commission's
headquarters.
The banks whose staff have been picked up are Fidelity Bank Plc, First City Monument
Bank Plc, FCMB, Wema Bank Plc, Access Bank Plc, Skye Bank Plc, First Bank Nigeria Limited,
FBN, Sterling Bank Plc,
Diamond Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, Unity Bank Plc, Ecobank Plc,
Guaranty Trust Bank Plc,
GTBank, and Citibank. The DSS, it was learnt, which has been on the trail of Aminu Lamido, had sought an exparte motion fromby Justice A.F.A Ademola on November 6, 2013, a judge in the Federal
High Court, Abuja, to freeze the accounts, in 13 banks, of Adold
Engineering Company Limited, believed to be owned by the governor's son.
The fear of the banks, it was gathered, was that the DSS had no capacity to analyse information sent daily to CBN and EFCC related to money
laundering.
They argue that banks on daily basis send report on suspected
money laundry activities to the CBN and the EFCC.
A bank chief Executive said that in some of the above banks, the chief inspectors were picked. According to the bank executive who do not
want his name in print, last week in one of the banks the Department of State Security officials visited the head office under the guise of inviting the officials to their Lagos office, but unknown to them they
were flown in military aircraft to Abuja. Since then no one has been allowed access to the
officials. In one of the first generation banks an Executive Director was picked.(Vanguard Newspaper)
