With the latest revelations on the March 14 killing of 17 soldiers in Delta State, the prevalent supposition that the misapprehension between Okuama, an Urhobo community in Ughelli South Local Government Area, Delta State, and Okoloba, an Ijaw town in Bomadi Local Government Area, was the chief reason for the unimaginable massacre appears off beam.

Saturday Vanguard learned from multiple sources that a group of oil bunkerers, who were hired as mercenaries, might have carried out the bloodshed.

The Army, which is everywhere in the creek and land in Delta and Bayelsa States, searching for the killers, and stolen weapons has arrested some suspects, but it has not formally announced the capture of the killers.

Acting on intelligence, soldiers, who had laid siege to the Okuama community since March 15, invaded the Igbomotoru community in Southern-Ijaw Local Government Area, Bayelsa State, on March 17, stalking a suspected militant leader and oil thief, who has his operational base in the riverside community.

The storming of Igbomotoru swung attention to an alleged militant leader and oil thief, whose father is a retired army officer, and purportedly an Urhobo in Delta State as the mastermind of the Okuama killings. There is controversy over whether he is an Ijaw from Igbomotoru or maternally from Igbomotoru.

Some traced the militant leader’s paternity to Okuama and maternity to Igbomotoru. When the inter-communal crisis between the two communities started brewing, the community leadership, reportedly, contracted him to come and fight for them, which he did by mobilizing his boys to Okuama.

Saturday Vanguard could not immediately confirm the veracity, but it was the information that made the army send troops to Igbomotoru, Bayelsa State, in search of him.

When a strong clue emerged

However, a stout clue that oil bunkers were behind the butchery emanated when a supposed militant, who claimed to have participated in the killing, stated in a trending video, that they killed the military men for their support for another set of oil bunkerers.

He also said that if they had allowed soldiers to take away Okuama community leaders, the youths would be rendered powerless.

Generally, his statement in the video centred on divergence among oil bunkers in a part of the Niger Delta that entailed the use of soldiers to settle scores.

His words: “That is why the action (assassination of the soldiers) took place but people say the soldiers came for peacekeeping. Point of correction – no army came for peacekeeping. They are(sic) fighting in support of somebody (names withheld), who ordered them to do.”

However, within the week, another militant group, which identified itself as Amagbein Force, also in a trending video, pledged its loyalty to its leader, who happened to be the same militant leader that the army went in search of at Igbomotoru.

Could it be a coincidence? The group member, who spoke, did not make a direct claim that they participated in the killing of soldiers at Okuama, but said oil bunkering would not stop unless the government settled the matter peacefully, and easily.

He urged the Federal Government to hand over waterways security to the right person doing the work for peace to reign, saying the militants would stand with their leader, Amagbein, till death do them part.

Amagbein, in the past, denied allegations by the army that he was a militant and oil bunkerer, but has kept running.
Many expect that the army, which confirmed narrowing investigations to “persons of interest and their cohorts”, will release the outcome of its investigations shortly.

Who invited alleged bunkerers to Okuama?

Some curious minds, however, want to know what the mercenaries and oil bunkerers were doing in Okuama, which is not an oil-producing community when the soldiers came on a peace mission over an abducted Okoloba indigene.

How did they get to the Okuama community? Who invited them? Who authorised to intervene on behalf of the community when the soldiers decided to take away the community chair and other leaders?

There was an unconfirmed report that oil thieves cuckolded the soldiers to Okuama. How true the claim is remains a conjecture.

The commanding officer went to rescue JTF commander

However, Saturday Vanguard scooped that the Commander of the Joint Task Force, JTF, in Bomadi, the late Major Saffa, was the first to come to Okuama, on March 14, with his men.

A former supervisory councillor, whose brother, Anthony Aboh, the Okuama youths allegedly abducted the previous day, March 13, reported the matter to the JTF, and he was with them in a camouflage uniform.

The suspected mercenaries held the JTF commander who went to Okuama on the botched ”peace mission” and one of the soldiers in his team hostage.

They took the army officer hostage when he insisted on going away with the chairperson of the community and others.
Reports said the former councillor was among the persons killed on that day, while the corpse of his brother they went to rescue, was found floating in the River Forcados, just like the soldiers’ remains.

The Commanding Officer of the 181 Amphibious Batallion, late Lt. Col. A.H. Ali, proceeded on a peace mission to Okuama when information reached him that some armed youths in Okuama had abducted Major Saffa and another soldier.

Ali mobilized men in his command the same day to save his colleagues, but he met the same fate.

A driver who escaped with some soldiers when the brigands opened fire at the waterfront, said: “When the armed youths came out of their hideout after the peace talks in the community hall, as the soldiers were forcing the community chairman to the waterfront to board their boats, they signaled the community chairman to stoop and lie low on the ground.”

”The commander and his men did not notice the signal. This was after the incantations by the juju priestess and priest. It was after the chairman laid down that the shooting started. The soldiers could not return fire because of the powerful incantations.

”They did not kill Major Saffa instantly; they took him in a speedboat with the other officer, and sped towards the opposite direction of the community into the creek leading to Ewu, the traditional headquarters of Ewu kingdom.
”The Lt. Colonel and his team might not have seen the colleagues they went for. They exterminated all of them, but it was the following day the news broke that they had slaughtered them.

“They beheaded Major Saffa and killed others with weapons other than guns. The reinforcement and burning of houses at Okuama started the same day.”

The story of how the mercenaries asked Lt. Col. Ali to ask his men to drop their weapons if he did not come for war, after which they collected the weapons, and opened fire on them, is no longer news.

[Vanguard]

The National President of the Actors Guild of Nigeria, Chief Ejezie Emeka Rollas, MON, has expressed gratitude to President Tinubu for his fatherly intervention on the health of the ailing Zack Orji who has departed to the United Kingdom for post-surgery assessment.

Rollas also commended the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu for her motherly care towards the veteran actor as well as the son of the President, Seyi Tinubu for his inflicting support.

He equally thanked Minister for women affair Barr. Uju Kennedy Ohanenye for her relentless efforts in ensuring that Zack Orji gets back on his feet as soon as possible and Orji’s longtime friend, Ahmed Bala for standing by him all through the period.

According to him, “We have witnessed the unprecedented support that President Tinubu is giving to the creative industry which has clearly shown his clear determination to uplift the sector to be more relevant and beneficial to both the practitioners and the national economy and we find it necessary to appreciate him.”

Rollas had earlier expressed profound gratitude to President Bola Tinubu on the appointments of an AGN member, Ali Nuhu, Managing Director of Nigeria Film Corporation and other key professionals such as Dr. Shaibu Husseini, Director General of National Fim and Video Censors Board and Obi Osika, Director General, Council for Arts and Culture.

Recall that days back, it was rumoured that Zack Orji was no more. But the leadership of AGN later debunked the viral report.

Going by the new capital requirements released by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for commercial, non-interest and merchant banks on Thursday night, 25 banks operating in Nigeria would need to raise not less than N3.894 trillion in fresh capital to meet up with the new minimum capital base.

This is as the apex bank have been cautioned to watch out for inflows of illicit funds that may be directed towards the capitalisation bid of the banks.

Having mentioned late last year at the Bankers Dinner in Lagos that the apex bank would beworking on a recapitalisation bid for the banking industry to cater to the $1 trillion economy that is being targeted by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu led government, the Dr Olayemi Cardoso-led CBN made good its word with a steep increase in the required capital base for commercial, non interest and merchant banks in the country.

According to the new requirement, commercial banks with international licenses are required to have a capital base of N500 billion while their national and regional counterparts are required to have capital base of N200 billion and N50 billion respectively.

Similarly, the capital base of national non-interest banks were raised to N20 billion while that of regional non-interest was raised to N10 billion. Merchant banks capital base was also raised to N50 billion.

LEADERSHIP findings showed that while the fate of some banks with holding company structure are not fully clear, nearly all the banks with the exception of the two regional non interest banks met the new capital base. Taj Bank and Lotus Bank both have currently more than the N10 billion that is required for them to continue operation.

In total, the 25 banks surveyed by LEADERSHIP showed a cumulative N2.049 trillion in paid up capital and share premium. This means that the banks would be needing a total of N3.894 trillion to meet up with the new capital base should they decide against mergers, acquisitions and reclassification.

Speaking on the capital base, Head of Financial Institutions at Agusto & Co, Ayokunle Olubunmi noted that whilst the recapitalisation bid will see another interesting couple of years in the banking industry, the CBN has to be cautious in ensuring that the industry is not flooded with illicit funds.

According to him, the apex bank will have to shore up its oversight and regulatory functions to ensure that flow of funds from terrorism, corruption and illicit proceeds are not laundered through the recapitalisation of banks.

“The CBN will have to ensure that proceeds from drugs and terrorism does not come in. Secondly, the CBN also need to ensure that it recapacitate itself such that they have the tools, the capacity to supervise the bank of such sizes. Because one major thing we have realised is that after the recapitalisation exercise, CBN is not able to supervise those banks and those are the things they should watch out for.

“And on the part of the bank, the banks need to be careful because if they are not careful with the merger and acquisition and other events that may come again, they need to be carefully that they don’t have a marriage of strange bedfellows. They need to ensure that the person they bring onboard is someone they have the same vision with, because that can ultimately kill the brand.”

Olubunmi stated that whilst everyone was expecting recapitalisation, “the format which the CBN went about it is not what everybody expected. Everybody was thinking about shareholders fund but they surprised everyone by coming from the angle of paid up capital instead of shareholders fund that was traditionally used. All the banks will be required to actually go to the market and raise capital.

“But the banks have two years, it is not something that if they don’t do it now, they will be in trouble. The other thing is that this is just the beginning and I’m sure that will there will be a lot of engagement. The banks will push back, particularly with the paid up capital, they will push back and may even ask the CBN to add retained earnings to it.

“If the CBN sticks to its decision, the banks will have to bring in institutional investors, and some will either merge or leave the industry. There would also be the option of scaling down to meet the recapitalisation so it is a lot of interesting times ahead

“Another thing is that the CBN wasn’t to use this to galvanize the inflow of dollars. because each of the banks will need the money required for recapitalisation and may have to source for investors outside the country, increasing the inflow of dollars that will help the industry.

On her part, Group head of Global Markets at Parthian Partners, Ronke Akinyemi said the new bank recapitalisation requirements by the CBN is a step in the right direction as it will eventually result in a more robust financial system. Though steep, we believe the time frame given will allow room for the current banks to meet the requirements before the deadline.

“Ultimately, we envision that this new recapitalisation requirement will result in increased foreign direct investments which will in turn help to stabilise the naira, thus we expect to see rounds of capital raises especially with the restrictions of the capital requirement to share capital and share premium. In addition, we envisage that there will be mergers between tier 1&2 banks and also among tier 2 banks to meet this new requirements.”

Speaking on this, the vice president, Highcap securities Limited, Mr. David Adnori said that the new capital base will be judged by the combination of the paid-off capital and share premium.

He noted that a lot of the banks that have large reserves and they will need to capitalise on their reserves, by converting them into paid-off capital, saying that if a lot of the banks do that, a lot of them will massively surpass that figure.

Adnori noted that the emphasis is mainly on banks with international operations and one can see the rationale behind the huge increase for those commercial banks with foreign exposures through their foreign operations because of the depreciation of the naira.

He pointed that a lot of those banks already have a lot of amount in their reserves which become capitalized. But some of them have also opted to go afresh, to raise fresh capital from the capital market, to increase their paid-up capital base.

He added that the fear now is that if a lot of them besiege the capital market to raise capital, then they will be crowding out funds from the real productive sector that has a serious shortage of capital.

“So, one would actually have expected that public policy should be aimed at shifting capital to recapitalise the productive sector, and not again to shift capital from the economy to the banking sector that is already well capitalized,” he said.

The doyen of the Nigerian Exchange Limited, Rasheed Yusuf, said stated that the local bourse can support such a major capital raise, even without the presence of foreign investors.

An economy and capital market analyst, Rotimi Fakayejo said “the market will support it with the deadline of 24 months. At such a time, Foreign Portfolio Investors would have started returning to the market gradually.”

Based on this, under the commercial banks with international authorisation of N500 billion; Access Bank, Fidelity Bank, FCMB, First Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, Union Bank, United Bank for Africa and Zenith have with a total amount of paid-up capital and share premium to be N251.81 billion, N129.71 billion, N125.29 billion, N251.34 billion, N138.19 billion, N148.09, N115.82 billion, and N270.75 billion, respectively. This shows that the institutions will be raising capital to meet up with the new capital base of N248.19 billion, N370.30 billion, N374.71 billion, N248.66 billion, N361.81 billion, N351.91 billion, N384.19 billion, and N229.25 billion, respectively.

Also, out of the Commercial Banks operating all over the country, EcoBank Nigeria met the new capital base as the Bank’s issued share capital and share premium stood at N353.51 billion exceeding the N200 billion new capital base. The paid-up capital and share premium of CitiBank Nigeria Limited (N14.44 billion), Polaris Bank (N50.43 billion), Stanbic IBTC Bank (N109.26 billion), Standard Chartered Bank Limited (N45.42 billion), Sterling Bank (N57.15 billion), Titan Trust Bank (N29.20 billion), Unity Bank (N16.33 billion), and Wema Bank (N15.13 billion) will be adding a new capital of N185.56 billion, N149.57 billion, N90.74 billion, N154.58 billion, N142.85 billion, N170.80 billion, N183.67 billion, and N184.87 billion respectively

Meanwhile, under the regional non-interest banking with a new capital base of N10 billion, TAJ Bank and Lotus Bank met the requirement by N14.06 billion and N13.03 billion respectively.

Based on the stipulation of the CBN, Access Corporation, the parent company of Access Bank has paid-up capital and share premium of N251.811 billion according to its 2023 full-year result released yesterday hence a shortfall of N248.189 billion.

FBN Holdings, the parent company of FirstBank has paid-up capital and share premium of N251.3 billion, hence a shortfall of N248.66 billion, according to its Q3’23 results. The paid-up capital and share premium of GTHoldco, the parent company of GTBank stands at N138.186 billion as of Q3’23, hence a shortfall of N361.814 billion

UBA has paid-up capital and share premium of N115.815 billion, hence a shortfall of N384.185 billion according to its Q3’23 Zenith Bank has a paid-up capital and share premium of N270.745 billion, hence a shortfall of N229.255 billion.

Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State has approved N2.19 billion as subsidy for the 2,290 intending Muslim pilgrims from the state for the 2024 hajj.

The governor said the action is to facilitate the beneficiaries’ religious obligations and enhance their welfare in the holy land.

He explained that the move was sequel to the recent announcement by the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCOM) on the adjustment of the 2024 hajj fare where intending pilgrims are to pay an additional N1.918 million.

Against this backdrop, Governor Mohammed said his administration has resolved to subsidize each pilgrim with the sum of N959,025 which stands as 50 percent of the additional fare for the 2,290 intending pilgrims from the state.

In a statement issued by his media side, Comrade Mukhtar Gidado, the governor said he had approved the immediate release of the sum of N2.196 billion for the payment of the fare subsidy.

He said the development underscored the government’s commitment to ensuring that Muslim faithful in Bauchi State have the opportunity to fulfill their sacred duty of performing the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the five pillars of Islam.

He said, “By subsidizing the hajj fare, the government aims to alleviate the financial burden on intending pilgrims, thereby enabling more citizens to participate in this revered religious obligation. This initiative also aligns with the government’s efforts to promote inclusive governance and ensure that every citizen has equal access to opportunities and resources.”

The governor charged the intending pilgrims to perform the hajj with sincerity, devotion, and reverence.

He reaffirmed the government’s unwavering support for the religious freedom and practices of all citizens and pledged to continue working towards the welfare and development of the state.