All other countries that experienced equally rapid financial asset growth crashed and suffered years of low or negative growth. As credit levels rose and stock prices inflated, the CBN failed to halt this vicious circle and foresee the consequences. The CBN did not highlight or failed to communicate the problem to fiscal authorities and the market in general.
By 2010, it became desperately evident that the bank and sovereign risks are tightly interconnected with two-way causality. The key lesson we have learnt is that financial crises have devastating effects on the real economy, taxpayers and the whole society. Recovery from a crisis is always painfully slow and long-lasting.