Ugo Aliogo, Anne-Marie Palmer-Ikuku and Joshua Odebisi
A former Director-General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Prof. Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke, has called on the federal government to merge the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) with the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) in order to promote increased effectiveness in the financial sector.
She disclosed this yesterday in Lagos, at the public presentation of a book titled: “Inside Nigerian Banks,” that was written in her honour by the Editor, BusinessWorld Newspaper, Mr. Nik Ogbulie.
Okereke-Onyiuke said this in respond to a call by the Delta State Commissioner for Water Resources, Mr. Fidelis Tilijie, who formerly was the Managing Director of the defunct Fortune Bank Plc, that the NDIC should be scrapped.
The former NSE DG argued that merging both institutions would have a positive impact on the economy.
“I agree with the chairman of the event (Tilijie), that the NDIC should be scrapped, however, I am bridging that by adding that scrapping it means nothing because AMCON will do the same thing as NDIC,” she noted.
She lamented that the government does not have a good understanding of how the finance sector operates.
According to her, as an institution, the NDIC has not been able to create wealth, but rather spends what is generated by the public, “we don’t need NDIC anymore, it is dead.”
She further noted that the merger of both NDIC and AMCON would create effectiveness in the sector, while also protecting the monies of Nigerians in the banks.
She added: “NDIC and AMCON can do the work effectively. After the merger, practising bankers should be brought onboard to work together. There should be reduction of staff and those available should be given the power to work. This will save Nigeria a lot of money. We have to build institutions for government to create wealth. People just go to government to waste money. During our time in the capital market, we created wealth for government.”
Okereke-Onyiuke, who donated some copies of the book to universities across the federation, appealed to stakeholders in the education sector to ensure that more copies of the book are available to libraries in tertiary institutions, including the national library.
Earlier in his remarks, Tilijie had called for the scrapping of the NDIC and the handing over of its assets to AMCON to manage.
