Shareholders with 10 per cent shares in the company on Thursday, called for an Extra-Ordinary General Meeting to be held within 21 days, in line with Section 215 (1) of the CAMA law, to achieve their demands
The Purpose of the meeting is for the proposed removal of the Bank;s chairman, Femi Otedola.
According to the set of shareholders, Mr Otedola emerged the chairman of FBN Holdings by acquiring significant amount of shares with the influence of Godwin Emefiele, the immediate past Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
They added that the bank’s former Chief Executive Officer, Adesola Adeduntan, assisted Mr Otedola, to take over the bank, as ordered by Mr Emefiele.
According to them, Otedola became a non-executive of the bank but without being cleared by the State Security Service and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
The shareholders claim that Otedola had seized control of the bank and did what he wanted, with his personal employee at Holdco, and another at the bank.
According to them, they also feared that Otedola would have absolute control and turn First Bank to his piggy bank without checks, balances and corporate governance, with the private placement of N360 billion share
The shareholders hold the opinion that if not for Emefiele, Otedola could not have passed the fit and proper test, after he ruined several banks with non-performing loans sold to AMCON.
Otedola has already been granted a loan of about $45 to 50 million by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), which comes to about N90 billion, THISDAY reports.
According to THISDAY, “This is to enable him (Otedola) take full control during the proposed N360 billion private placement. But some of the shareholders are saying instead of a private placement for shares of the bank, it should be by right issue or public offer,” a source claimed.
Some anonymous source also alleged that Otedola’s preference for private placement is targeted at gaining control of the financial institution as his private estate, THISDAY added.
This development in FBN started after the bank’s top executives were asked to leave as part of its corporate restructuring and repositioning plan for 2025, which and the confirmation of Olusegun Alebiosu as FBN’s managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) in June last year.
