The Task Force on the Implementation of the Failed Bank Act has given notice to re-arrest for prosecution, directors and officers of licensed banks who had committed banking malpractices and had absconded.
In a press statement signed by the chairman, Task Force on the Implementation of the Failed Bank Act Mr. Taribo said the task force met and reviewed some pending investigations by the Police Financial Malpractices investigation Unit under the Failed Banks Act comprising seventeen cases involving ten closed micro-finance banks in which fifteen former directors of the MFBs were involved. It also reviewed two cases of closed Deposit Money Banks involving their former Directors.
The task force also reviewed about sixteen criminal cases being prosecuted under the Failed Banks Act in which prosecution had been stalled as a result of the fact that the accused persons in those cases had jumped bail and had absconded from the country in the heat of their investigation and prosecution. The sureties that took them on bail had also disappeared.
It is reported that some of those accused persons had sneaked back into the country in the hope that their prosecutions might have been terminated.
In July 1995, the Inspector General of Police established a special Police Unit called the Failed Banks Inquiry to assist the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Central Bank of Nigeria implement the criminal aspects of the Failed Banks Act through investigation of criminal complaints referred to the Unit by the Regulatory Authorities.
In carrying out its objective, the Task Force reviewed the police investigation of suspects and the prosecution of accused persons by state counsel and private legal practitioners issued with the Fiat of the Hon. Attorney General of the Federation under the Failed Banks Act.