Photo: Late Chief Adebayo Alata
gbomoso Community Bank founded by the late Ogbomoso business mogul, Chief David Adebayo Amao Alata once had a strong footing and was a choice of the banking public in Ogbomoso as it was a leader in the community banking sector in the city.
The bank grew in customers’ base and in capital deposits. If anything, the love the people of Ogbomoso had in the founding chairman of the bank, Adebayo Amao Alata because of his pioneering role in industrializing the city was transferred to the bank. The bank was on the rise but darkness set in with the death of the founder in January 1994.
The bank which became known as New Vision Microfinance Bank started the ill-fated journey of going under sequel to the directive of the former President Olusegun Obasanjo administration for the conversion of community banks into microfinance banks in December 2005 with the deadline for the conversion slated for December 31, 2007.
With this new policy, a minimum capital requirement of N25 million was set for a unit of a microfinance bank. However, the Alata family and the directors of the bank could not raise this fund even though the Alata family was able to raise N10m.
Hon. Segun Adebayo, son of the late founder of the bank told The Insight, “The bank needed to raise N25m at a point and the family raised N10m as shares but the money was rejected based on some frivolous reasons by the directors. There are minutes to back up these assertions as tendered in court.”
Segun Adebayo alleged that instead of raising the balance the directors who were shareholders, led by an oil magnate, Mr. Moses Oladejo Olagbende popularly known as “202,” planned to take over the bank. He said, “All suggestions were rebuffed in the course of the bank’s struggle to transform.
“In their desperate ambition to take ownership of the bank a former bank security inspector of one of Nigeria’s old banks was recruited as manager to replace a trained and more qualified manager. The move was opposed but no one listened.”
The former legislator who represented Ogbomoso North State Constituency in the Oyo State House of Assembly between 1999 and 2003 further contended, “Their intolerance, lack of trust and some hidden agenda led to the pulling out from the board by some directors.”
He added that it was as a result of this imbroglio that the bank collapsed as it failed to raise the required capital base of N25m.
He reiterated that the Alata family raised N10m but that the other directors could not raise their own share, this was a death knell of the bank, he declared.
The bank having lost its license, the Alata family moved to take ownership of the bank’s building and so issued an eviction order to the bank.
This move was however resisted by the said directors whom Adebayo claimed were scheming to take over the property.
He informed, “Based on this bitter quarrels and disagreements within the board, the Alata family served the bank an eviction notice to vacate the building.”
But Olagbende went to challenge the eviction order in court with the suit lasting 10 years (2008 to 2018). The Alata family hinged its defence among others on the claim that the bank paid rent to the family between 1992 and 2008.
Delivering judgment on the matter at the High Court of Justice Ogbomoso Judicial Division on December 5, 2018, Honourable Justice O.S. Adeyemi ruled that “the claimant’s case is unmeritorious in all its entirety and both the claims and the counter claim to the counter claim of the defendant are hereby dismissed in its entirety. While the defendant’s counter claims succeed.”
By this ruling, the Alata family won the ownership of the property.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC, took over the remains of the bank, the license was withdrawn for non-performance and other related offences. An auctioneer was found to dispose of the properties of the bank in the building.
Having secured favourable court judgment, the Alata family took possession of the building housing the once thriving Ogbomoso Community Bank, and now the bank has become history.
Asked to comment on the matter, 202 declined, saying “I will not talk on a matter in court.”
Nevertheless, Segun Alata claimed the other party did not appeal the judgment and “so what matter is in court again (in reference to 202’s retort). The bank is gone but we have our property.”
Sadly however, the former apartment of the Ogbomoso Community Bank has been rented by an eatery operator leading to the banking hall being redesigned and the bank’s “strong room,” being destroyed.
A former worker in the bank who did not want his name in print lamented this development disclosing that the ‘’strong room” of the bank was well built and opined that converting the bank into an eatery was a wrong move, “the owners of the building should have waited for a bank to rent it in the future, it has a very strong, well-built strong room.”
