Answer:
'The Golden Crown' is a story about a brilliant young university graduate, Johnny Egbo, from a
modest and happy family, who secured a job in a bank with the hope of making a successful career
in banking. But unknown to him, unethical practices and unhealthy rivalries among staff, had
permeated the industry and turned the environment into a jungle where only the fittest survived.
Johnny worked very hard, yet in the hostile banking environment, he was all the time appraised low
[a non-performer] because he could not achieve his outrageous targets. His situation got so bad
that he was on the brink of losing his job. Fatuously, he met an old school friend who introduced him
to a wealthy government contractor that started a relationship with his bank. In a short while, the
customer's account recorded tremendous transactions, especially deposits which the bank
treasured most at the time. That immediately brought Johnny to limelight, putting him on the road to
fame and fortune. Some senior officials, including the managing director of the bank, who wanted
to make personal gains from the customer's transactions, quickly got involved in the account
management.
At first, they were all contended with their gains but when the extravagance that came with ill-
gotten wealth set in, conflict of interests became inevitable. The Managing Director immediately
effected a punitive transfer of a staff whom he considered a stumbling block to the process before
settling to enjoy his booties with his only trusted staff, Johnny. Over time, the gains grew terrifically
but blinded the big boss who threw caution to the wind in handling of the customer's transactions.
Carelessness and ravenousness pushed him to compromise in one of the customer's big
transactions that put the bank in financial crisis.
In the first decade of this century, the Nigerian banking industry witnessed a lot of such
carelessness and frauds perpetrated, with impunity, by banks' executives. Unlike the usual
conservative attitude and professionalism, for which bankers were known, some banks'
executives were openly engaging in corruption, greed and flamboyance. Unscrupulousness
was so widely practiced by bankers that it became basis for winning businesses from
governments, and securing appointments and promotions to higher offices in the banks. This
situation gave rise to the recruitment into positions of responsibilities in the banks, unqualified
and dubious people who had connections with highly placed government officials and
influential business persons. It was this caliber of bankers that contributed the most to the rot
that nearly wrecked the nation's financial system.
Lacking in technicalities and decorum, they resorted to immortalities, displayed senseless
grandiosity and exhibited insatiable quest for ill-gotten wealth which gave birth to the monster,
impunity, which ultimately consumed so many businesses, ruined several careers and left the
nation's financial industry battered.
