Igbinoba, FHA and an unending leadership battle

The court, as often said, is the final arbiter in disputes. The above, of course is in view of the fact that it is the duty of the courts to pronounce final judgment in cases, and the ruling of a court of law in this regard is binding on all concerned,

But for the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), the chairman of the board of FHA Mortgage Bank, Professor Mohammed Al-Amin and the suspended CEO of FHA Mortgage Bank, Roland Igbinoba, the decision of the court is only an interlude in what has been a long standing battle over the control of the bank. The battle has thus far, defied even the industrial court whose injunction has so far been treated as mere ‘paper talk’ without substance. But is there more to the saga than meets the eye?

What has now turned into a seemingly insurmountable dispute, Hallmark gathered, started in January this year when Igbinoba, while proceeding on annual leave, reportedly handed over the management of the bank to the most senior Deputy Manager, ZaburaUsman as Acting Manager. But the choice of Usman did not go down well with the chairman who reacted by replacing him with his choice Deputy Manager, Hayatudeen Atiku Awwal

The problem would later escalate when upon resumption of office, Igbinoba refused to honour some of the transactions initiated by the acting CEO, Awwal and approved by Al-Amin which he reportedly insisted did not follow due process.

Among these was the award of a contract for the renovation of the bank’s Gwarimpa branch, a capital project that allegedly exceeded the statutory limit and was conducted outside the required bid process.

The ensuing bad blood between Igbinoba and Al-Amin quickly deteriorated, Hallmark learnt, and would turn for the worse when on June 1, 2015, the legal officer of the bank supposedly on Al-Amin’s orders circulated text messages inviting board members for a meeting that had been scheduled to hold the following day. There, allegations of illegal loans, insubordination on account of insistence on not promoting favoured deputy managers without due process and so on were leveled against Igbinobia.

Hallmark  further gathered that efforts to resolve the matter within and outside the board were made, these involved outreaches and appeals to the chairman himself, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Lands and Housing, the supervising ministry for the FHA and the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation, but all to no avail.

On June 2, 2015, Prof Al-Amin, in what he described as a move towards sanitizing the FHA Mortgage Bank sent a letter to Igbinoba suspending him from his position as CEO, citing allegations of misconduct and refusal to implement his direct instructions, which according to him was culminating into an impending collapse of the bank.

But Igbinoba in a swift response as contained in a letter he addressed to the Head of Service on June 9, 2015, provided clarifications and listed what he has achieved since taking over as MD/CEO of the bank on July 19, 2013. He explained that within five months at the helm, the bank’s retained earnings improved by 16 percent to a new negative position of N527 million, while “shareholders funds had returned to positive and was at N2.9 billion.

“The balance sheet had grown to N11 billion mostly due to grant assets from the parent company FHA. Within the same period the bank made a profit before tax (PBT) of N147 million. This was the first time the bank was having a positive PBT since 2007 (except for 2008 where PBT was 12.7 million). Unedited results for 2014 shows a PBT of N226 million; the first time in over a decade of the bank’s existence that is making profit for two consecutive years,” Igbinoba said.

He later proceeded to the National Industrial Court to challenge his suspension. The court, after considerations issued an order of interim injunction restraining the FHA, the FHA Homes Ltd and Prof. Al-Amin from suspending him.

In the injunction dated June 19, 2015, and signed by the presiding Judge, Hon. Justice M.N. Esowe and the Registrar Mrs. Ismaila R. Danlami, the court stopped FHA, its directors, agents or representatives from implementing the contents of the letter dated June 2, 2015 which suspended Igbinoba from office.

 “An order of interim injunction restraining the respondents themselves, directors, agents, servants, privies, trustees, nominees, proxies, subsidiaries, related companies or otherwise any person, natural or artificial, however called from implementing the contents of the letter dated 2nd June 2015 written by the respondent to the applicant (Igbinoba) purportedly suspending the applicant from office pending the hearing and determination of the Motion of Notice,” the injunction read in part.

The court consequently directed the FHA and Al-Amin to reverse all steps taken by them or anyone acting on their behalf in accordance with the said suspension letter to make the applicant relinquish his control or powers invested on him as the MD of the bank pending the determination of the Motion of Notice.

Surprisingly however, the FHA board flouted the order, refused to re-instate Igbinoba and went on to publish an advertorial in some daily newspapers justifying the suspension. In the advertorial, the FHA claimed that it was committed to ridding the mortgage bank of corruption and provided explanations as to why Igbinoba’s suspension was warranted.

“Several policy inconsistencies have inundated the FHA in 10 years. This resulted in operational stagnation and poor service delivery. In the last decade alone, the FHA was run by six management teams without any government subvention,” the advertorial read.

And in what appears to be a sidekick, the advertorial stated that within the last two years, the FHA was run without even a budget. “In the whole of 2013 and 2014, FHA was run without even a budgetary document to guide expenditure. Obvious collapse of operations was visible all over the authority at the time.”

Going further, the advertorial averred that the FHA was hijacked by some strong interest groups interested in buying the agency for its assets and pointed out that the FHA was headed in the direction of the defunct Nigerian Airways.

However, the real issue at this juncture is whether the FHA board and Prof Al-Amin had any justifiable reason to flout and order of the court, and what would be the possible result of such a decision. Hallmark sought the opinion of BarristerMonday Ubani, former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Lagos State chapter. He explained that disobeying a court order amounted to contempt and it is left for the person involved to initiate contempt proceedings against the culprit.

“You bring contempt proceedings, you commit them for contempt so that they will come and show the court why they should disobey a court order. If someone disobeys a court order, you go back to the same court and initiate contempt proceedings so that he can be sent to prison.” Ubani said.

Igbinoba had meanwhile through his lawyer, Chike Okafor, initiated contempt proceedings against the FHA, Prof. Al-Amin and the FHA Homes Ltd for the disobedience. The case came up for hearing yesterday but was adjourned till September.

Meanwhile, Al-Amin does not look like someone bothered by contempt proceedings, and prospects of going to jail. Over the weekend in Abuja during a ceremony organized to mark his investiture as an ambassador of ethics and conscience, he reiterated his determination to pursue his vision of transforming the FHA and will not be distracted on its mandate to turn around the Authority.

He proudly noted that himself and his team had over the past seven months blocked leakages in FHA and streamlined the administration of land and property in the organization, explaining that, along with the management and staff, he was poised to put FHA on the road to greatness.

Al-Amin further praised the Authority’s staff unions for their unmatched dedication in their relationship with Management and called on the Centre for Ethics and Self Value Orientation which gave him the award to return at the end of his tenure to conduct another assessment of his performance.

He has since insisted that he would not reverse his decision to sack Igbinoba. There could be more to his uncommon resolve to run rings even around the court as he had allegedly boasted that he was going to have his way at the end because he hails from the same state with President Muhammadu  Buhari.