How Lamido Sanusi cleaned up Nigeria’s banks

What was the background to your actions and plans for the banks? How do you deal with the claim that you have waged a vendetta against the banks? When I was appointed governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria [in March 2009] I found banks on the verge of distress, on the verge of a major crisis. Banks had been mismanaged. They had lost their capital betting on the stock market and on oil prices. We had to inject money as lender of last resort. As supervisors, we could not continue to allow people to manage institutions by running them into the ground. We found evidence of criminal activity that we handed over to law enforcement agents. Those matters are before the courts of law. (see Nigeria’s banking coup, Euromoney September 2009

Are you actively encouraging foreigners to look at some of the distressed banks in Nigeria with a view to buying them?

We will not deter foreigners from coming to Nigeria; we will not stop them from owning the banks.