Silence troubles Erastus Akingbola. It haunts him and twists his mind’s best strings into strains of discord and a non-melodic chime.
In the silence, Akingbola senses a ghost of impressions of his true worth. It’s a nightmare for the former bank chief who got booted from office in a haze of scandal and legal prosecution. The former Managing Director of Intercontinental Bank would be 66 years old in few days but unlike the past when newspapers would be awash with birthday greetings and advertorials from cronies, business associates and hangers-on, he’s not even sure if such will happen this year.
This arouses insinuations that most of the former bank chief’s friends and associates were wolves in sheep’s clothing. Many of them milled around Akingbola and worshipped him simply because of the benefits they could enjoy by their association with him, argued a source close to the former banking juggernaut.
The former bank chief understands that he has simply become inconsequential in the estimation and schemes of men and women who lived to worship him back when he was a towering bank boss. Akingbola went low profile in 2009 when the Sanusi Lamido Sanusi tsunami swept through the banking industry and swept off Akingbola. Akingbola sought refuge in London until he returned to the country to face charges of monumental sleaze and fraud levelled against him and other top bankers. Even though he was granted bail by the court after being remanded in EFCC custody for weeks, he still living a low profile life and adjusting to life without the exaggerated obsequiousness and panoplies of power.
