The Nigerian anti-graft agency said Saturday it had frozen the accounts of the sacked directors of five ailing banks for running the institutions into insolvency.

“We have frozen the accounts of the former managing directors and executive directors of the five banks,” Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) spokesman Femi Babafemi told our correspondent

He said the agency had also invited the auditors of the affected banks for questioning.

“The auditors have to tell us what they know about the financials of the banks. How they came about huge debts and non-performing loans without the auditors raising the alarm,” he said.

The heads of Afribank plc, Intercontinental Bank plc, Union Bank plc, Oceanic Bank plc and Finbank plc were removed on August 14 by the Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, for piling up billions of dollars in bad debts and inefficiency.

The CBN accused the banks’ management of granting loans to prominent Nigerian businessmen and companies without following best practice.

The total loan portfolio of these five banks came to N2,801.92 billion, according to CBN.

Margin loans amounted to N456.28 billion and exposure to oil and gas loans amounted to N487.02 billion while aggregate non-performing loans stood at N1,143 billion, it said.

The EFCC has given the debtors one week to pay up or face arrest and prosecution.

Meanwhile, panic withdrawals by depositors and a thick cloud of uncertainty are shaking Nigeria’s financial sector after the sacking of the directors of five key ailing banks, operators and analysts said.

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi earlier this month removed the heads of Afribank, Intercontinental Bank, Union Bank, Oceanic Bank and Finbank for piling up billions of dollars in bad debts.

The books of about a dozen other banks are also currently under CBN scrutiny to determine their viability, debts and liquidity status.

“There are apprehensions in the industry on what will be the fate of the remaining banks because of CBN’s action,” a treasury manager in one of the nation’s banks, Sunday Adeola, told our correspondent.

The dismissals of the bank chiefs and the anti-graft agency’s threat to arrest, prosecute or seize property of the debtors of the banks if they failed to pay in a week has put the heat on the sector, analysts said.

“The… system has witnessed massive cash outflows in recent days. Depositors are jittery and they are withdrawing their money,” said analyst Joel Allison.

“Bank vaults are becoming empty and if the trend continues we may have another bank failure on our hands,” he said, recalling the liquidation of dozens of distressed banks in the 1990s after bad management and fraud.

Dozens of the owners and managers of those failed banks were prosecuted or jailed while others fled the country to evade arrest.

The CBN chief earlier this month accused the management of the five ailing banks of giving loans to prominent Nigerian businessmen and companies without adhering to good corporate governance and risk management practices.

He put the total loan portfolio of the ailing banks at N2.8 trillion.

The CBN has also published a list of dozens of prominent Nigerians businessmen as debtors to these banks.

The list includes tycoon Aliko Dangote, rated by US Forbes magazine as one of the world’s richest Africans with a net worth of around $3.3 billion.

Dangote, 52, who is also the new president of the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) has denied managing the oil and gas company listed as owing Intercontinental Bank more than eight billion naira.

The Nigerian government has in the past days tried to calm the nerves of agitated bank depositors by assuring them that their money is safe and that it will not allow the debt-ridden banks to sink.

The government has already announced a N400 billion naira  bailout for the affected banks.

Nigeria’s central labour movement NLC lauded Sanusi’s action, and urged the CBN to restore public confidence in the industry.

Rasheed Yusuf of the Association of Stockbroking Houses of Nigeria also called for proper management of the situation “in a way that the market will not be jeopardised.”

The confusion in this important sector of the Nigerian economy is further exacerbated by the fact that three key players — Dangote, NSE director general, Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke and International Bank’s ex-boss, Erastus Akingbola  were listed by the CBN as bank debtors.

Okereke-Onyiuke is also a director in Transnational Corp, a failing conglomerate, which the CBN says owes Union Bank about N31 billion.

Five years ago, in a bid to shore up the capital base of these financial institutions, the number of banks was cut from more than 90 to 25 solid ones.

The figure later dropped to 24 when two of the banks merged.

But that early caution appears to have dissolved in more recent times and the global economic crisis has made the credit crunch that much tougher.

Mindful of the 1990s banking crisis, weary Nigerians are being cautious.

“Yesterday I took all my money from my bank to avoid possible unpleasant consequences,” said Femi Afolabi, a Lagos hotelier, who lost almost three million naira in 1995 when his bank failed.