The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should share in the blame for the crises which led to last week’s acquisition of Bank PHB, Spring Bank and Afribank. NLC President, Comrade Abdulwahed Omar, said this was because the interim managers who were appointed by the CBN failed to revive the fortunes of the banks although he conceded that the reasons given for the takeover of the banks seemed plausible. Omar, in a statement made available to THISDAY in Abuja Tuesday, queried the guarantee being offered that the bridge banks floated by the CBN through the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) would not suffer the same fate. “Again, the financial regulators cannot extricate themselves from responsibility. As supervisors of the banking system, they have failed to check the continuous wobbling of the bailed banks some of which escaped the bridging hammer by a whisker through hasty and inconclusive mergers,” he said. He called for measures to be put in place to protect depositors’ funds and workers in the affected banks as well as attempts to redress the plight of shareholders some of whom are poor Nigerian working people. “While acknowledging the injection of the much required funds into the nationalised banks for sustainability, the CBN must further guarantee confidence in the banks by ensuring that depositors are able to withdraw funds as desired without hindrance, and continue to give public assurances that none of the banks would be allowed to fail,” he added. Omar advised that the new management of the banks should operate in a transparent manner and cooperate with all unions in the banks, noting that a situation where workers were used as scapegoats for the poor performance of the banks would not be accepted. He again called for more vigilance by all stakeholders in the banking sector while calling for a rooting out of the issue of falsification of financial records for narrow gains and make-believe profits.