The recent revelation on the floor of the Nigeria's House of Senate by Senator Ita Enang that 83% of the oil wells that are owned today by Nigerians belong to a handful of some anointed Nigerians from the North. This highly divisive and very explosive development has once against brought back the issue of the agitation for the resource control by the federating units of the Nigerian nation back to the nation's national discourse. Some Nigerians have also openly and publicly defended this imbalance and the shady ways in which these oil wells were allocated to some few Northerners by claiming that the Southerners also dominate the Nigeria's banking sector also. This biggest questions that are left unanswered are simply these:how big is the Nigeria's banking sector when it is compared with the oil industry? Do those Southerners who are the owners of these banks make more money from these banks than the Northerners who are the owners of those oil wells? Did the Federal Government of Nigeria act more transparent, liberal and then followed the due process in awarding those banking licences to the interested Nigerians than the way they awarded these oil wells as gifts and in a shady manner to these selected Nigerians?
According to a recently available financial data on the size of the Nigeria's 23 commercial banks. The total value of all the assets of the these 23 banks in Nigeria stood at about $10.5 billion in December 2011 and a total of $8.5 billion out of these assets are customers' personal deposits alone leaving the banks with only $2 billion worth of fixed assets. What about our oil sector? Nigeria produces and exports an average of 2 million barrels of crude oil a day, at about $100 a barrel for 365 days a year. This will give us $200 million a day or $6 billion a month or $72 billion a year. The annual revenue of the Nigeria's oil sector alone is about 8 times bigger than her entire banking sector when both are compared together.
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