Sotinrin Assumes Duty at BOA, Pledges Restructuring, Recapitalisation of Bank

John Shiklam in Kaduna

The newly appointed Managing Director of the Bank of Agriculture (BOA),  Mr. Ayo Sotinrin, said he will restructure, recapitalize and reposition the BOA to be the biggest bank in Africa.

He stated this yesterday at the Kaduna headquarters of the bank after taking over from the outgoing Managing Director of the bank, Mr. Alwan Ali Hassan.

He said this would be done through the introduction of technology and the development of value chains in cocoa, ginger, and other cash crops.

He added the BOA under his leadership will digitise all its branches across the country and deploy capital in a very intelligent, smart, and efficient way.

Sotinrin expressed appreciation to President Bola Tinubu for finding him worthy of appointment as the BOA helmsman.

He  said with the  introduction of technology and smart data, he will deliver “a true Bank of Agricultural.”

Sotinrin said: “My task is quite daunting because we have a sector that is in need of a lot of restructuring.

“We need to create a new food system, starting with seed system, we need to start working on how we mechanize both for small scale farmers and large scale farmers.

“We also need to look at the area of inputs within the agric sector, creating homegrown fertilizer and also expanding our land use for farms.

“I think nothing can start without having proper baseline data. We have farmers, we have farms, but how do you link farmers to the farm, because that’s only when you can start to deploy capital effectively and be able to use technology to track growth and to even track where the money is going into.”

He added that the era of non-performing loans are over.

“The sort of banking we want to do now, is  to move away from those days of non-performing loans, have proper control in place in our new M and E systems and where we have extension services, or we have collateral management to go to the farms to ensure people are doing what they said they are doing with the finances we give them”, he said.

He commended his predecessor for all the work he had done in bringing the bank to where it is.

Sotinrin said: “With the help of the President, the Minister of Agriculture, on food security, we will join hands and take bold steps in agriculture…”

He said, “Financial inclusion is one thing we talked about a lot. We are bringing everyone into the finance net…

“Our plan is to become the biggest banks in Nigeria and Africa. We are quite optimistic that we are up to task.

“Therefore, my message to the management team is that I believe in teamwork. It’s a new day and a new era. We need to work very smart. We need to use technology.

“So, technology adoption will be my message.”

In his earlier in his remarks, the outgone managing director disclosed that since his assumption of office in  May 2020, the bank had recovered a total of N8 billion loans.

Hassan said most of the recoveries made were from the anchor Borrower Programme, out of which N5 billion had been remitted to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

He further disclosed that the bank, as part of strategies to reduce running cost, commenced the deployment of solar energy in its 110 branches across the country, funded by money from recoveries and its income.