Our
attention has been drawn to a story tagged: Aftermath of President
Jonathan’s Failed Re-election Bid: Skye Bank Chairman, Tunde Ayeni in
Fresh Mess on some online sites, especially Octopus News.
We are quite
surprised at this story, both because it is completely false and
malicious, and because no effort was made to contact the Bank to confirm
and or clarify the allegations before its publication, contrary to all
known professional rules and ethics of journalism.
For the avoidance of
doubt, Skye Bank is a public limited liability company owned by over
450,000 diverse shareholders, with sound corporate governance structures
and practice.
The Bank has a full complement of 13 Directors, comprising 9 Non –
Executive Directors, two of whom are Independent Directors, including a
former Deputy Governor of the CBN. Dr. Olatunde Ayeni is a
NON-EXECUTIVE Chairman of the Bank. He is neither involved in the
management of the Bank, nor does the governance structure and practise
of the Bank give room for any director to use the Bank’s funds for
personal purposes.
Equally
important is the fact that Dr. Olatunde Ayeni is a private business man
who has business interests in various areas of the economy including
aviation, maritime, real estate, construction, financial services, ICT
and the oil and gas sectors amongst others. He has had business
interests in many of these areas before becoming the Chairman of Skye
Bank.
He is also Chairman of several other companies, both quoted and
unquoted. He therefore has both business and personal relationships
outside of Skye Bank. Dr. Ayeni is not a politician, though by reason of
his network, he has relationships with various people, some of who are
technocrats, corporate players, and persons holding political offices
across various political parties and at various levels.
As a private
citizen, Dr. Ayeni is well within his right to utilise his personal
resources at his discretion. Skye Bank did not support, contribute or
fund any political party, and neither did it directly or indirectly
support Dr. Ayeni to contribute to, support or fund any political party.
The
allegation in the story is totally untrue and baseless. There are no
concerns whatsoever about the safety of shareholders’ investment whether
by shareholders, or by the Bank’s very keen regulatory overseers
including the CBN and SEC. The Bank continues to maintain its sound
corporate governance and risk management practises that continues to
ensure its strength and growth, and recently earned it the coveted ‘Best
Bank in Risk Management’ Award by Conrad Clark in Association with Risk
Management Institute of UK and BusinessDay.