This may not be the best of times for the First Bank of Nigeria Holdings Plc.
This is because a group of shareholders, with 10 per cent of the company’s shares, have requested the bank to call an Extra-ordinary General Meeting (EGM) in accord with section 215 (1) of CAMA, which stipulates 21 days to call the EGM.
Top on the agenda of the proposed EGM is the ouster of FBN Chairman, Mr. Femi Otedola, and a Non-executive/Deputy Chief Executive of Geregu Power Plc, Mr. Julius B. Omodayo-Owotuga.
The aggrieved shareholders alleged that since the immediate past Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, reportedly helped Otedola’s acquisition of a considerable amount of shares that led to his emergence as Chairman, the FBN Holdings has never known peace.
Emefiele, the shareholders alleged, had invited the former Chief Executive Officer of First Bank, Dr. Adesola Adeduntan, to his house in Ikoyi and told him to work with Otedola to help him take over the bank. Which he dutifully did, and subsequently paved the way for Otedola becoming a non-Executive Director in the first instance, without security clearance from the Department of State Security, DSS and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
However, according to a report by Thisday newspaper, Otedola, having successfully taken over the bank, targetted the very man that facilitated his success.
“The first person Otedola targeted to be kicked out” according to the Thisday report, “was Adeduntan himself, followed by Tunde Hassan-Odukale, who was the Chairman of First Bank of Nigeria Limited, and subsequently moved against Tosin Adewuyi, whom he side-stepped for the position of CEO despite coming first in the interview conducted by a global recruitment agency.
Instead, the report continued, he saw to the appointment of the man who came last in the interview, Mr Olusegun Alebiosu. Mr Alebiosu was said to have since pledged “absolute loyalty” to Otedola and has allowed him to use another of his personal acolyte, a non-Executive Director, Akin Akinfemiwa, to run the bank.
The enraged shareholders submitted that, with Otedola as Chairman, his personal staff, Omodayo-Owotuga at the Holdco, and yet another personal staff at the bank, he has taken full control of the bank and behaves like an emperor.
And with the alleged private placement of N360 billion shares, the embittered shareholders suspect that Otedola would gain absolute control and possibly turn First Bank to an organisation without checks, balances and corporate governance.
Yet, the critical stakeholders figure that but for Emefiele who handed him the bank on a platter, there was no way Otedola could have passed the fit-and- proper test, having allegedly ruined several banks with non-performing loans, which were then sold to AMCON before he got his “sweetheart deal” under former President Goodluck Jonathan and Godwin Emefiele
The aggrieved stakeholders fear that after ousting Adeduntan, Tosin Adewuyi, an Executive Director would follow. They also fear that the Group Head, Folake Ani-Mumuney, would be axed. Her offence? Allegation that she carried out a directive of the board to host a send-forth party for the retiring CEO, who had been at the helm of affairs in the bank for nine years.
Meanwhile, he had earlier removed Ms. Ijeoma Nwogwugwu, a noteable journalist, as a non-executive director of a First Bank subsidiary for daring to write a critically acclaimed article, which he considered unfavourable to his ego.
