Tunde Ogowewo

Mis)Using Bank Share Capital as a Regulatory Tool to Force Bank Consolidations in Nigeria

This paper is a critique of the policy-making process and the particular policy choice made by the Central Bank of Nigeria with respect to the recent increase in the minimum share capital requirement for Nigerian banks. The article questions the apparent prioritization by the Central Bank of banking supervision – important though it is – over macro-economic stability. It also draws attention to serious public law issues (breach of monetary law and abuse of power) and the private law implications (conflicts of interests, scheme of arrangement defects, and negligent valuations) of this policy-making episode and policy choice.

Self-Inflicted Constraints on Judicial Government in Nigeria

The developmental process of any State is constructed largely by its government. Although it is common to chart this developmental process by reference to the context the government creates (disabling/enabling) through executive and legislative (in) action, it will be an incomplete exercise if com mentators fail to situate the judiciary, as the third arm of government, in this charting exercise. The prevailing tendency is to view the executive and to a lesser extent the legislature as the primary drivers of the developmental process, even though the judiciary is very much a part of the government of the Nigerian republic. The aim of this paper is to properly situate the judiciary in the developmental process and to contextualize its performance against the backdrop of the constraints to which it is subject. Such a contextualization is necessary because any meaningful interrogation of the judiciarys role in the developmental process ought to commence by appreciating the constraints to which the judiciary is subject and the context in which it operates. Yet this is seldom appreciated, even though the con straints are considerable and they largely define the context and space in which the judiciary operates. Until 29 May, 1999, the greatest constraint was unaccountable government. Military rule had a particularly corrosive effect on the judiciary. As Justice Ayoola recently put it:1

The Role of Target Management in a Tender Offer: The Position in Nigerian Law

A hostile tender offer is the most dramatic occurrence in corporate life. It pits incumbent management against the insurgent who claims to be getting rid of dead wood. The target shareholders usually incur large losses when management succeeds in defeating the offer and the target remains independent. An array of defensive measures have been used as embattled managers have fought to keep their seats. The validity and effectiveness of these measures depend largely on the regulatory scheme for tender offers in the particular jurisdiction and the legal duties of the directors.

The Problem with Standing to Sue in Nigeria

The function of a legal test is to navigate the court through various possible solutions to achieve the optimum result in the application of a legal principle. It therefore forms part of the process for securing a just result to a controversy in adversarial proceedings. A well-articulated legal test should reflect the judicial policy on the principle it applies. Such a test should generally yield results that are just and are in consonance with the policy behind the principle. If the test fails in this respect, it ceases to be functional. It is against this background that the one test used by Nigerian courts to determine standing to sue in all doctrinal contexts will be examined.