20101011
reuters

LAGOS (Reuters) - When Nigeria's central bank sacked eight of the country's most senior bankers last year during an unprecedented $4 billion bailout, many doubted they would be prosecuted, let alone jailed.

Just over a year later, Cecilia Ibru, the former head of Oceanic Bank, was sentenced on Friday to six months in prison for fraud and agreed in a plea bargain to hand over an eye-popping 190 billion naira worth of assets.

The assets, made up of 94 properties in countries including the United States and Dubai and stakes in 100 mostly Nigerian-listed companies, will be enough to ensure Oceanic's survival as a company, the central bank said.

They will be managed by a state asset management firm set up to help recapitalise the rescued lenders and would allow Oceanic to repay the 100 billion naira it received in emergency funds.

"The actions of the central bank in removing the managing directors of the eight affected banks had drawn criticism and allegations of regional, religious and even personal agendas," central bank spokesman Mohammed Abdullahi said.

"This decision by a court of competent jurisdiction, and the magnitude of the recovery, has put a lie to all those claims."

Ibru is from one of Nigeria's leading business families, with interests from shipping and hotels to oil and media, and her fall sends a signal that even the most powerful -- in the private sector at least -- can no longer expect immunity.

"Cecilia Ibru was easily the doyenne of women bankers in Nigeria, if not in Africa ... The judgement by Justice Dan Abutu against (her) sent shock waves through the banking world," former central bank deputy governor