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•CBN board of governors approves audit report

Mike Adenuga, a non-executive director with Equitorial Trust Bank (ETB) and the bank’s chief executive officer, Charles Uwaechie; Francis Atuche, managing director of Bank PHB and his counterpart at Springbank, Charles Ojo may have been recommended to be relieved of their posts as the board of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) met on Wednesday in Abuja to evaluate the report of the second and final phase of audit exercise of banks.
Any moment from now, CBN is expected to announce the report of the audit of the 14 banks and the removal of the affected banks’ chief executives, chairmen and directors
The action of the highest decision making body of the apex bank was based on the review and approval of the audit report of the remaining 14 banks. However, close sources told BusinessDay last night that five chief executives were initially pencilled to go, but that it had to opt for three whom it considered as having committed serious infractions. Their continued stay in the affected banks, the sources added, would adversely affect the survival of the banks.
“Five banks’ audit result were below average, three of them were more seriously indicted”, the source said, adding that the other two results appear fair enough, but would be closely monitored by the CBN to ensure they recuperate adequately.” 
A top CBN official who confirmed the development to BusinessDay said the situation of the three banks which chief executives have to go is also not as bad as the last five banks which saw their managing directors sacked over a month ago.
But in order for the banks to stay afloat, their managing directors had to drop off the management team so that the banks could be nurtured back to profitability again.  
BusinessDay had exclusively reported early this week that after a prolonged suspense, the stage was now set for the release of the result of the second and final round of examination of the banking industry as CBN had forwarded the advance copy of its audit report to the Presidency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the State Security Service (SSS). 
In fact, BusinessDay further gathered that members of the board expressed shock over some revelations about some banks and their chief executives, promising that assets of some of them may be confiscated as depositors’ funds were used in some cases to acquire properties.
Indeed, business leaders and industry watchers had earlier in the week demanded for a clear and transparent result sheet with details on the status of each bank so as to justify whatever action would be taken on them. 
For instance, Ikechukwu Unegbo, former president of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), had said that the only way for the Sanusi Lamido Sanusi-led CBN to go in releasing the audited results of the remaining 14 banks is to ensure they are more detailed so as to convince doubting Nigerians that there is transparency in the process so far. 
“In fact, I think the CBN is thinking in the direction of releasing a well defined result on the remaining 14 banks, having learnt one or two things from the last audit”, said Unegbo.