Think the U.S. response to the Wall Street meltdown was right or wrong? Nigeria is dealing with its own banking problems and in a decidedly different fashion.

The U.S. pumped a whole lot of money into the banks and let them work out how to keep the machine humming along, and it worked pretty well.

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Nigeria’s central bank chief, said of banks in that country: "The banks have lost their money in bad loans. We have put in money. We have questions about the management, so we have put in new management."

Pretty straightforward. Nigeria will be infusing $2.6 Billion to avoid catastrophe. Apparently the banks had done what banks are not supposed to do- pile up bad debts and run out of money.

"We will not allow any bank to fail," said Sanusi told.

Now that sounds familiar.

The culprits for the bad loans are familiar as well- big investments in oil and gas commodities when prices were high, probably betting on continuing growth, that didn’t work out well at all when the markets went sour. Sansui also assured depositors that their money is safe:

"We assure every depositor that no one will lose money and we will continue to support the banks and all Nigerian banks."

A good instance to sit back and think about how nice it is that the U.S. has FDIC insurance, something we take for granted that is by no means an international standard.

Overall, five institutions will be given bailout money, and rather than having the executives there figure out what to do with it this time around, Sansui is basically firing the executive management.

Wow.

"The punishment, the sacking of the management is severe. I think it will make the banks involved sit up. Any new management that comes in place, would see to it that the reason that resulted in the sacking of the previous management will not work,” said Mcarthey Mbadugha, financial analyst.

Definitely severe, and while there is a world of difference between the way U.S. banks operate from how Nigerian banks operate, it will be interesting to see how the financial markets, both local and international, respond in the long-term to this move. In the short-term, the local currency, the naira, dropped 2% against the U.S. dollar.

Nigeria is considered the center of West Africa’s banking industry and is also one of Africa’s largest oil producers, both meaning it has a lot of financial clout and a lot at stake in how the financial crisis is dealt with.

While the U.S. has a long history of being at the lead of the international financial market, there is no such legacy of lead in Nigeria. As the center of a developing market both in commodities and financially, this kind of a decisive move shows 1) that the government is not afraid to take executive managerial control of the financial institutions and markets, and 2) that they are serious about keeping the financial markets stable.

Both speak to long-term stability goals and a willingness to go to any lengths to make that possible. We’ll see how the international markets respond.