By Lanre Adewole
Since the penultimate week intervention on the massive fraud and institutional cover-up rocking Osun State-partly-owned mortgage bank; Living Trust Mortgage Bank Plc, the Central Bank has taken two quick steps to legitimize the illegalities and outright crimes that have seen the mini bank with just N2.5 billion share capital, raking up N11 billion non-performing loans, according to CBN’s own investigation!
Just as I promised in the first of the planned series on the savagery being visited on the bank by the combo of the investors brought in by the yesterday’s administration of Gboyega Oyetola, officials of the current administration and the supervising Apex Bank, this follow-up will be mainly to serve “receipt” to the Nigerian public as a proof of the corporate messiness going on in the bank’s boardroom and the rapacity being visited on its vault.
About 48 hours after the initial piece titled “Cardoso’s CBN and Osun mortgaged bank”, panicky top officials of the apex bank who had practically looked away while the bank was being subjected to amoral insider abuse, suddenly woke up to their regulatory responsibility and issued a summons to the sacked Managing Director, Adewunmi Adekunle to make himself available in Abuja on March 31, 2026.
The summons, obtained by Gibbers, reads, “The Central Bank of Nigeria is in the process of concluding a special examination conducted on Living Trust Mortgage Bank Plc. The examination covers 2020 to 2026. The interview aspect of the examination is scheduled for March 31, 2026 at the Central Bank of Nigeria to make some clarifications before the conclusion of the examination and issuance of regulatory letter”.
Days after the issuance of the invite, CBN, without any explanation, cancelled the meeting and rescheduled for April 7, 2026. Well, my people are waiting. A delayed treatment is better than a septic sore. Better late than never, they say.
But the apex bank would appear not done with whatever regulatory abracadabra the mortgage bank is being subjected to.
While stakeholders were waiting for its self-announced “special examination “ of the bank to be concluded, CBN allegedly went ahead to confirm Kamaldeen Adekilekun as the substantive chairman of the bank’s board.
For context, in a letter dated April 17th, 2025, Osun State Government nominated Adekilekun to the board of the bank as an independent director. Then fired him in another letter dated 29th April, same year. His nomination lasted just 12 days. No doubt, some significant politicking possibly dictated such a short-lived tenure, but it is what it is and the state, whether politically influenced or not, acted within its power to hire and fire.
Then CBN began a ding-dong with the Adeleke administration over the withdrawn nominee, going ahead to name him the interim chairman of the bank’s board even after he was no longer representing the state!
The Apex Bank then concluded the travesty in the week of Gibbers’ first publication on the matter as reported by The Nation newspaper in its March 28,2026 edition. The publication quoted from a letter allegedly issued the withdrawn nominee, confirming him as the substantive chair of the bank, while the so-called “special examination” was yet to be concluded!
In a show of force and superiority to the Osun Governor who wrote to withdraw Adekilekun’s nomination, the Apex Bank, as reported by The Nation, told the Governor off with, “In our letter with reference number OFI/DOL/CON/PLI/001/213, we drew your attention to the fact that board nomination and appointment, once approved by the CBN, is a tenured appointment as prescribed in Sections 2.4.5 and 2.4.6 of the Code of Corporate Governance for Primary Mortgage Banks in Nigeria.
“We also averred, in our letter, that there was nothing in your letter suggesting that Dr. Adekilekun was in breach of the relevant sections of BOFIA 2020 or any CBN regulation which could disqualify him from holding the position or completing his term of office.
“Based on the foregoing, we therefore decline your request to withdraw Dr. Adekilekun’s appointment”.
The institutional challenge thrown to the Governor was signed by Amonia Oponsuju on behalf of the Director of Financial Institutions Supervision Department.
The quoted reference number on the supposed new letter was from the last letter written to the state government. Do we take this a clerical oversight or what?
Maybe Osun state government which brought its now-CBN-hijacked nominee should speak publicly on why it fired the now-imposed board chairman in the first instance, since CBN claimed there was nothing in earlier communications from the state government to show Adekilekun breached banking laws.
Amazingly and amusingly, the Apex Bank also claimed security of tenure for board members of primary mortgage banks in Nigeria, regardless of how they handle their responsibilities. This immunity would seem to contradict another stance of the Apex Bank on insider credit which is nothing more than abuse of privilege and trust. That internal abuse has cost Osun and its citizens over N11 billion, N2.2 billion of which, are in custody of political leaders and top government officials as revealed by CBN-ordered audit. A roll-call of dishonour may follow this piece.
If CBN appears to suffer selective amnesia, there is a memo from its leadership, dated February 17, 2025 to all banks with reference no; BSD/DIR/PUB/LAB/018/006, titled “Letter to all banks: compliance with insider-related credit limits”. A portion that caught the eyes is sub-titled “Step Down of Directors with Non-Performing Insider Loans”.
It reads, “Directors with non-performing insider-related facilities are required to step down immediately, from the board, while the bank should commence immediate remediation of the loans through recovery of the collaterals including the shareholdings of the affected directors”.
