“Some 15 years ago, millions of poor Nigerians were conned into borrowing to buy bank shares. I was one of them. I had no one to pull my ears and tell me that I needed to be educated first before seeking to hoe that farm of thorns. Records still say I am a shareholder of some banks, including First Bank. But that is where it ends. It has been sweat without sweet – which is why I amuse myself showing stupid interest in intrigues among big men who run big banks. One current case is about First Bank board where a civil war is ongoing. Some members are demanding an Extraordinary General Meeting of shareholders – and I am supposed to be part of that ‘general meeting’.” —Lasisi Olagunju
Following Lasisi Olangunju’s article wherein he warned amongst other counsel that: “No bank in 2025 should be anyone’s piggy bank with a Tzar or Tzars pointing and taking”, a former Attorney General of Rivers State Worgu Boms on Monday recounted how he convinced a client not to lured into buying shares.
In a post in reaction to Olagungu’s article, Boms said: “I know us very, very well. In fact, I brag about this my knowledge of us. This knowledge is not about an individual, whether he is from Iwo or Akunano or whether he is a medical Doc or an academic doctor etc. No.
It is knowledge of us as a people. I know us.
“I told a client not to worry himself about all these share buying and stuff like that. He was with a wealthy friend of his and they asked me why and I told him so. Elaborately. And I made clear it was friendly advice and not professional as I was just a Court Lawyer. Herbert Wigwe was alive then and they expressed to him what I said which I meant, every bit, till date. And I repeated it to him.
“At the time, (and this bolstered my client’s desire to listen more and examine what I was saying,) my client was the single, individual, non-institutional largest shareholder in a Brewery company and I attended Board meetings sometimes for him and on his behalf.
I told him what would soon happen there and that he would lose all he bought and that nothing would happen. And that even if he would get anything, it would not be near what he had put in.
“‘ As for that one, I believe you’, he said.
“Then use that to reason my view on this craze for shares”, I added. Well, I was right!! As I type this, I am on my way to one of the biggest Supermarkets where I live. It is sitting on the site of that brewery where my client was a shareholder. The brewery has changed hands and part of its vast land converted to establish the Supermarket with a vast car park. The supermarket is reputed to be the most reliable in retailing authentic imported items of whatever type!
“This First Bank grieving which I did not want my client to be part of, triggered this remembrance and narrative which I just sketched. The aggrieved person’s story here situates 15 years as the time he bought into the share-holding, the same period of the events I narrated. He described as a ‘Textbook Joke’ those things you hear: Rights Issues, Private Placement etc. For me, he knew it too late- I knew it after studying Company Law in my Final Year, coupled with my knowledge of us. His describing it as Textbook Joke (notice I have italicised Textbook ), is exactly the same reasoning and reason that made a lawyer here describe provision of our Rules on Settlement of Issues in similar put down- and I agreed with him. We believe the contents of Textbook as the Ureka!
What we know now, or are knowing now about First Bank has been on in many other corporate spheres. From the Law Reports, I can show countless instances and these are the ones that went to Court or up to Courts whose Judgments are reported. If you know or followed up with the recent story of Mike Lynch, a wealthy Britton, described as the Bill Gates of the UK, how he was extradited ( you heard me well: a Wealthy Briton was extradited) from his own country and brought to the US on allegation of cooking the books of his own company which he sold to HP, you will understand some of the things I am saying here. The Jury acquitted him, but that is obviously not the point.
Let me leave the matter here. ‘ We Are Where We Are Before of Whom We Are.’ “
“First Bank has a yet-to-be-concluded Rights Issue. All of us, poor shareholders, were invited to participate in that gamble of investment. Hundreds of thousands took the offer and paid. They have not heard the final answer from those who hold the yam and the knife. Now, suddenly, there are talks about a Private Placement, and it is very contentious. My books and my dictionary are my business administration teachers. They tell me that Private Placement means “sale of stocks directly to a private investor rather than as part of a public offering.” So, I join those who are asking: Who is the private investor for the private placement and why that person? I ask because I hold some shares of First Bank and they were bought with money from the brow. Besides, in the context of what we are discussing, how does this Private Placement collocate with the recent Rights Issue by the same company? I am obviously too illiterate to understand the ways of big men.” —Lasisi Olagunju
