HOW DIAMOND BANK NIGERIA WAS DESTROYED Diamond To Dust: Birthed by the Father, Buried by the Son Nigeria

Mr. Pascal Dozie founded and nurtured Diamond Bank from 1991 to
2005. After growing the bank to an enviable height for 14 years, he
relinquished the Chief Executive position to Mr. Emeka Onwuka at
the end of 2005. His exit would, however, be heralded with the
improved performance of the bank, which recorded a profit of N5.445
billion for the year 2005.

Onwuka, effectively took over from January 2006 and steadily
grew the bank to profit after tax of N3.977b in 2006, N7.086b in
2007, N12.82b in 2008 and N1.328b in 2009. The bank posted loss of
N11.214b in 2010 and another loss after tax of N13.940b in
2011.

Alex Otti took over in 2011 and in his first full year of 2012,
the bank posted a profit after tax of N22.108b, N32.5b in 2013 and
N28.36 when he handed over in 2014. The bank also saw its total
assets rise from N564.9b in February 2011 to N1.18 trillion by
December 31, 2012, and N1.52 trillion in 2013.

Otti doubled the full staff count from around 2,000 in 2010 to
over 4,000 in 2014. He expanded the bank’s network from 210
branches in 2011 to over 265 branches three years later. Under his
watch also, the bank established an international subsidiary in the
United Kingdom, in addition to expansion in Francophone West Africa
(Senegal, Togo, and Ivory Coast).

Otti’s performance was so sterling that the Central Bank
classified the bank as one of the eight systematically important
banks in Nigeria under his watch. Otti’s era was the golden era of
the demised bank.

Then entered Uzoma Dozie, the son of the founder Pascal Dozie,
as the Chief Executive of the bank in March 2014 and the bank’s
fortune started nose-diving.

In 2015, his first full year as head of the bank, the bank’s
profit after tax went down from N28.36b to N5.656b. It went down
further to N3.499b in 2016 and a loss of N9.011b in 2017.

In 2017, noticing that it could no longer continue to cope with
losses from its subsidiaries, the bank sold its West African
operations in Benin, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, and Senegal to Manzi
Finances S.A., a Cote d’Ivoire-based financial services holding
company and the bank later sold its United Kingdom’s
operations.

In 2018, the bank went into a coma and had to be merged with
Access Bank.

Competence, not family ties, grows business. Until Nigerians
learn to separate these two, the end will always be sad.

~Mazi Obioma Ezenwobodo