CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

The deteriorating condition of financial institutions particularly banks has remained a problem of great concern to policy makers.  It is now a well know fact that there is wide spread distress in the banking system and despite the measures recently taken by the government as well as bank regulators and supervisors, there remain fear that the problem is not over yet and is being suppressed and not being suppressed and not being dealt with decisively. Banking crisis is not limited in Nigeria; it is also present in other parts of African, latin America, Asia, Europe and North America.  Infact, it is a development that has come to be associated in particular with economic in which financial liberalization is being or has been implemented. There is wide spread belief that banks occupy unique positions in most economics, both developed and developing countries, as creators of money, the principal depository of savings, major allocators of credit, and the manager of the country’s payment mechanism.  Consequently, the government often deems it necessary to formulate policies, for the soundness, efficiency and safety of the bank industry.  The monetary authority has the responsibility for the supervisor of the banking system.  This responsibility is discharged by undertaking both of site and on-set examination of the books of the banks.  The provisions among other things cover minimum capital requirements, returns to be submitted to the CBN Central Bank of Nigeria by banks, power of the CBN to conduct routine and special examination and power of the CBN to revoke a bank’s license.

This work seeks to determine the role of Nigerian Monetary Authorities in Bank Distress prevention from 1990 to 2005. Distress in the Nigerian banking system is a phenomenon that must be tackled with every amount of vigour by CBN/NDIC in order to minimize its occurrence in the economy in this light, some possible corrective measures that could be adopted to ameliorate the consequences of distress in the economy will be suggested.