Tunde Ayeni, former Chairman of the Board of Directors of defunct Skye Bank Plc, has finally broken his silence on the circumstances that led to the collapse of the bank.
Speaking during an interview with journalists, reported by Thisday, Ayeni explained that the downfall of Skye Bank was not due to managerial incompetence or poor financial performance, but rather systemic flaws and external forces beyond the board’s direct control.
“Our level of corporate governance in most institutions is still poor in this environment,” he said. “There are a lot of corporate deceits that lead to corporate failures.”
Ayeni recounted incidents in his career where loans were deliberately misrepresented from the outset. “I have seen a situation where credit has been designed from the very beginning to fail… made to look like it is a credit for an oil and gas business, when in fact it was for real estate,” he noted. As a non-executive director, he said, decisions were often made based solely on the information provided by the executive management, limiting board oversight.
When asked whether political factors influenced the bank’s collapse, Ayeni offered a guarded but telling statement: “Well, to a large extent, maybe or maybe not. The point is that, as an experienced journalist, you would agree with me that if you hold a public office for one month, no matter how prudent or clean you might seem to appear, if the powers that be want to find something against you, they will surely do. The same thing applies to banking. If the regulators want to find you culpable for certain reasons, I can assure you that it will be very difficult for you to escape it.
“But there are some facts that are very difficult and unwise for me to share with you at this moment. I’m sure when I’m a bit older or retired from business, it’ll be much easier for me to do so.
“But specifically on the story of the withdrawal of the licence of Skye Bank, I believe either someone else or myself will tell the real story one day. All I can say for now is simply the bank’s failure was not because we didn’t run the bank well or maybe we did not know what to do at the time. Neither was it that the bank was not doing well. It failed because the licence just had to be withdrawn, and it was withdrawn.”
In September 2018, Tunde Ayeni lost Skye Bank after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) revoked the lender’s operating licence.
Following the decision, the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) was directed to recapitalize a bridge bank and seek investors to take over its stake. Polaris Bank Limited was established as the bridge bank and took over the assets and selected liabilities of the defunct Skye Bank.