No rift in Jaiz Bank Board — Management

Uche Usim, Abuja

Management of Jaiz Bank Plc has assured its shareholders of no internal rift whatsoever, contrary to reports in some media.

The Managing Director of the Bank, Mr Hassan Usman, gave the assurance on Sunday in Abuja during an interface with finance journalists.

He explained: “There is no rift in the Board of the Bank other than legitimate exercise of divergent opinions on a matter in the ordinary course of the Directors’ duties. As a testimony to the absence of a rift, the Board and Shareholders of the bank.

“The matter of succession for the current Managing Director was considered by the Board as the

expiration of his contract approached.

“Whereas some Directors of the Bank opined that a change of leadership was required to pursue some critical strategic goals, others believed otherwise, given the very impressive performance of the current Management.

“The Board nonetheless resolved to appoint a new successor in person of Mr. Muhammad Shaheed Khan. This decision was however rescinded at a subsequent meeting of the Board.

“The Board’s resolution to rescind its decision and consequently discontinue the appointment process was in line with the terms and conditions of the offer letter issued to Mr. Khan since the offer was subject to relevant regulatory approvals.

“Incidentally, the approval obtained from the relevant regulator materially modified the intention of the Board as expressed in the conditional offer to Mr. Khan, necessitating the Board’s decision to discontinue the process of his appointment.”

He assured the bank’s Customers, Shareholders, investing public and other stakeholders that the Board

of the Bank remains committed to conducting its affairs within the stipulations of existing Corporate

Governance Codes for banks and public companies in Nigeria”.

The Jaiz Bank boss also noted that plans were afoot to raise additional funds to fund branch expansion, business optimization, upgrade of information technology infrastructure and enhancement of working capital requirements.

He further revealed that the bank currently has 41 branches nationwide and has secured approval to do three more in 2021.

Jaiz Bank Plc, Nigeria’s first and only full-scale ethical bank commenced operations on 6 January, 2012. The bank grew it balance sheet at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 35% over the last four years.