Nigeria dumps maritime bank for Regional Maritime Development Bank
members of MOWCA in 2011 agreed to have a billion Dollars as the capital base of the Bank.
Oteh also said that the establishment of a Maritime Bank in Nigeria could send a wrong signal to other countries that are already committed to the formation of the Regional Maritime Development Bank.
The lawyer also disclosed that the shareholding of the RMDB has been shared amongst the MOWCA with Nigeria taking the highest of 12 percent.
He said: “There is an agreement that dates back to 2011 where the Transport Ministers in West and Central Africa approved and ratified that the various governments of Maritime Organization for West and Central Africa. But for some period, there was no serious follow up on these decisions until about four years ago, we have re-energized this process.
‘‘Countries have signed the charter to the Bank, and we have enough number of countries to activate the process of the Bank, as at this time processes are going on.
‘‘The Headquarter of the Bank will be in Nigeria; the other 24 countries have conceded to that, and they have also agreed that a Nigerian will the President of the Bank. But it is going to be a Private –Public sector driven Bank, so the states in the two sub-regions of West and Central Africa collectively have 51 percent of the shareholding of the Bank given to the MOWCA states and these shares were allotted to them on the basis of volume of trade and so naturally Nigeria has the lion share of 12 percent and the other 49 percent will be for institutional investors.
‘‘More like African Import Bank AFREXIM has shown a lot of interest, we have quite a lot of institutional investors particularly within member countries who want to be part of the Bank.
‘‘Like I said Dr. Paul Adalikwu, a Nigerian, who is the current Secretary General of MOWCA has been given the mandate to follow the process and ensure that the Bank takes off as quickly as possible. Hopefully within this year”.