The banking crisis which gripped Nigeria should not be seen from an isolated perspective. Now more than ever the Central Bank of the Gambia should do a comprehensive study of what happened in Nigeria with a view to developing its supervisory role.
Nigeria is an oil producing country. The expansion of earnings from oil gave rise to the growth of its financial institutions. Banks made huge profits and attracted a high level of shares in the Nigerian Stock exchange. Few realised that insider operations had led to the diversion of the resources of many of the banks thus driving them to give loans to close associates without any means to recover the money. The consequences of the bad debts have been devastating.
In August the news struck people like a thunderbolt from the blue that

that ‘The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has dismissed the Chief Executive Officers and other top management of five major Nigerian Banks . The banks are Intercontinental Bank, Union Bank, Afribank, Oceanic Bank and FinBank”
According to Central Bank Governor of Nigeria Lamido Sanusi they “ discovered huge amounts of bad loans that had not been disclosed…and decided that at this point in time, the banks are in a grave situation”
In addition to the bad loans the Central Bank Governor attributed the crisis in the banking sector to the decline in the prices of oil from 170 dollars per barrel to 40 dollars per barrel at the time. ”The Nigerian stock market lost about 70 percent of its value from the peak after the crisis…” Hence the”banks that had huge exposures to the capital market in the form of loans to stockbrokers and investments and proprietary trading positions lost a lot of value.”
The Nigerian Central Bank governor had to inject more than $2.5 billion into five Nigerian banks and fired their managing directors in order to stabilize the financial system in the country.
It also went further to publish the list of non-performing loans of Bank PHB, Spring Bank, Unity Bank, Wema Bank and Equatorial Trust Bank as at June 30, 2009.

Bank PHB is owed 170 naira billion non-performing loans.
Spring Bank is owed 95.594 naira billion loan.
Equitorial Trust Bank (ETB) is owed 46 naira billion loan
Unity Bank is owed 36.5 naira billion.
Wema Bank is owed 36 naira billion.
Names of individuals and companies that took the loans were also published. The list contained names of a former Vice President, Governors and many prominent personalities in Nigeria. The crisis is still being managed. Only time will tell the extent of the damage. In this regard the Central Bank of the Gambia should seek the advice of the Central Bank of Nigeria on the financial status of the branches of all the banks from Nigeria in the Gambia and make public pronouncements on their viability so that their customers would feel secure.