Dear Mr. President, we will like to start by felicitating with you on your 76th birthday.

Sir, this letter is to bring to your notice the injustices embedded in the takeover of Diamond Bank by Access Bank. Never in the history of mergers and acquisitions in the banking industry has a takeover deal ever been hurriedly concluded and sealed on a Sunday. Mr. President, it may interest you to know that Diamond Bank shareholders were totally kept in the dark during the discussions and process that led to the exercise. This is one of the reasons we believe that there are more to the takeover than meets the ordinary eyes. Looking at the whole saga from all ramifications, the Access Bank’s bizarre takeover of Diamond Bank is an injustice that must be reversed.

Mr. President, it is an open secret that more than 78 percent shareholders in Diamond Bank are Igbos and the Bank is a major contributor to Igbo owned Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, SMEs, spread across the country. It’s therefore, quite glaring that the Diamond Bank debacle is an elaborate and orchestrated move to injure the Igbo economy and business interests of the Igbos race. We hereby plead with you, as a father of all to intervene and stop this.

There was never a time stakeholders had issues with Diamond Bank; and they never complained of the health of the bank. Pascal Dozie does not own up to 30 percent shares in Diamond Bank. So the question is, if he has issues with regulatory authorities, why should innocent stakeholders be made to bear the burnt of his misadventure?

Mr. President, it beats the imagination that from the blues, Access Bank is taking over a strong bank like Diamond Bank with no known history of liquidity issues. This is curious and it calls for investigation. We are aware that a powerful mafia is out to inflict maximum damage on Igbo businesses for political reasons. We fear, Mr. President, that if allowed to succeed in their evil plot, your support base in Igboland stands the risk of being severely eroded.

Mr. President, we make bold to say that Diamond Bank’s issue is political and not liquidity issue. If it is about the health of the Bank, why didn’t the Central Bank step in as it did in the case of Skye Bank, now Polaris Bank?

Giving Diamond Bank the Skye Bank treatment will go a long way to safeguard shareholders’ interest, reassure them and put depositors minds at rest.

Also, CBN’s intervention in the manner of Skye Bank will guard against job loses in Diamond. Now, with Access Bank’s curious takeover, over 20,000 jobs are on the line in Diamond Bank. The affected staff and their dependants are going to be thrown into hunger and economic hardship.

Mr. President, the Igbos have resolved to vote to return you to power in 2019 to continue with your march towards reinvention of our country but it would appear that an anti- Igbo mafia with vested political and business interest are out to put a wedge between you and the people so as to deny you South-East votes by setting in motion, the death of Diamond Bank.

Mr. President, you will eternally write your name in the hearts of this generation of Igbos and the generation to come by intervening to stop the plans to kill Diamond Bank in cold blood.

Sir, you can do this by directing the CBN to do the needful, like it did in the Skye Bank case. Preventing the demise and obliteration of Diamond Bank from the corporate map is to save Igbo businesses and South-East business interests.

Mr. President, we are confident that as a listening leader, you will listen to the Igbos’ pleas and save Diamond Bank from a politically induced death.

Signed
Mathias Okoroigwe
Slyvester Nwafor