By Lanre Alfred
The false grin hides what the false heart knows. Underneath the arches of pride, phony airs and public smiles, the contemporary Nigerian deep-pocket groans under the burden of truth. Truth to the Nigerian deep-pocket is relative; it is malleable into several shades and flexible forms; that is why characters as fragile as clay toys parade themselves as billionaires.
As you read, more people are parading themselves as billionaires. And how do they qualify as billionaires? Their claims to the esteemed status are wholly predicated on their acquisition of expensive homes, private jets and luxury cars. Flying chartered jets. The media celebrates them and extravagantly attach to them, the hackneyed appellations: “filthy rich,” “nouveau riche,” “Nigeria’s superrich and famous,” among others. But pray, these people are not real billionaires in the real sense of it.
They owe banks billions of naira often acquired in illicit deals and circumstances, and this is responsible for the high debt portfolio and financial crisis currently being experienced by First bank, Diamond bank, Skye bank, FCMB, Access bank, Guaranty Trust bank to mention a few.
These self-acclaimed billionaires are actually nothing without bank loans. “Their day to day business activities depend on bank money. They are responsible for our banks’ severe financial crises yet they continue to enjoy access to outrageous loans because they are friends to major bank MDs,” disclosed a highly placed source in a first generation bank. The latter’s bank currently grapples with severe financial crisis and high debt portfolio that has been written off as bad debt as a result of the so-called billionaires’ inability to repay loans acquired through senior management executives of her bank.
Today the banking sector groaning under heavy debt portfolio of these fat cats and self-styled billionaires. While the middle class and real businessmen entrepreneurs suffer neglect from the banks and paucity of funds to finance their ailing enterprises, the contemporary billionaire enjoys interest-free loans acquired illegitimately. More often than not, these so-called billionaires lose their prestige and freedom while they get prosecuted for financial crimes.
More importantly, when any of these so-called billionaires die, four or five banks swing to action and engage in feverish hustle to take over the ill-gotten properties of the deceased in desperate bid to recoup non-performing loans given to the deceased in his or her lifetime.
Some they recover, some they simply write off a ‘bad debt’ – which raises the bothersome rhetoric about who actually is a billionaire. What makes a real billionaire? Search me!
Watch out for the list of the real billionaires and ‘acting’ billionaires on this platform soon.
