their headquarters in Lagos over the weekend, and had to sleep on a mattress on the floor.

Ibru's lawyer reported that, because the EFCC didn't have any diesel to power their generator, the room in which she was kept had no power and was swarming with mosquitoes. So when she appeared in court on Monday, after listening to 18 of the 25 counts against her, Ibru collapsed in the dock and had to have a doctor attend her before the hearing could continue.

Ibru and the other bankers tried alongside her have pleaded not guilty, and there have been questions raised about the legality of the charges. But, though he has had to counter criticisms that he carried out the process without correctly involving the National Assembly, Sanusi has not been deterred. Recent reports indicate that seven more banks may have to be bailed out, and their executives would face censure too.

Firmly in the spotlight, Sanusi, Nigeria's equivalent of US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke or Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, is taking the chance to completely remodel his country’s financial landscape. During a recent trip to London, he made a bid to lure foreign investment for the stricken banks, and Lagos is currently teeming with western bankers and management consultants flying in and out from London, Frankfurt and New York.

Sanusi is apparently exploring every possible avenue in his efforts to reform system - including Islamic finance. Because of the inherent deficiencies in the conventional western banking system, he says, "the crisis has provided scholars, lawmakers and bankers to reassess opportunities provided by Islamic finance".

Sharia-compliant finance does not allow the charging or receiving of interest on money. Based on teachings set out 1,400 years ago in the Koran, its rules maintain that all wealth belongs to Allah, and that humans are merely trustees of the money they have.

While many western banking centres remain unimpressed by Islamic banking – though Britain has approved some Sharia-compliant financial products – the system does have its advocates. The recent banking crisis in Wall Street and the City might never have occurred, they argue, if more banks were run along Muslim lines.