Unity Bank has come a long way since it was first formed from 9 banks during the great restructuring of the Nigerian banking industry, as chaired by Charles Soludo. In that time the bank has struggled to compete with other new gen banks and was struggling to break even. This is why the news that somehow it had become the country’s newest bank to secure $1 billion in funding from Milost Global Inc. a private equity firm in the U.S. was widely praised, and news that the deal gone up in flames is causing widespread alarm.
According to a recent report by Bloomberg “The company had agreed to provide debt and equity, and would own 60% of Unity Bank, which would end its listing on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and begin trading in the U.S. The terms had been agreed and Unity Bank’s board had signed and approved, but shortly after news of the deal broke, Milost began getting email threats.”
The threat to this investment by Milost international was allegedly carried out by a politically connected individual who threatened to derail the company’s operations in Nigeria.
While Unity Bank is yet to make a statement on this allegation and how it will affect its business, there are two takeaways from this event. First, Nigerians are the ones destroying Nigeria. Few weeks ago we discussed an act of sabotage on this blog as it relates to the mammogram machine donated to Lasuth that was sabotaged by the staff at Lasuth, another one has happened in the series of Nigerians destroying Nigeria.
The eventual growth and expansion this investment would have brought Unity Bank would have ultimately led to massive employment for job seekers and an increase in GDP from the banking sector but all of that has been effectively halted by acts of sabotage by the unknown politically connected individual.
This individual in a bid to protect his or her interests in the Nigerian economy particularly the banking sector has stunted the growth of a would be competitor.
The second takeaway is that acts such as this will go on a long way in affecting the perception of Nigeria to foreign investors. We’ve always been saying that Nigeria is open for business. With acts of sabotage like this are we still open for business? This should be investigated by the necessary quarters especially the Presidency to bring such individual to book.
