News Analysis: Passport Puzzle: What Saiful Alam’s Citizenship Drama Really Tells Us About Power and Accountability in Bangladesh

It is one of those stories that refuses to fade away.

Mohammad Saiful Alam, the man who built the sprawling S Alam Group empire — touching everything from edible oil and sugar to banking and real estate — has been trying for years to walk away from his Bangladeshi citizenship.

Not quietly, but through layers of legal filings, Singaporean passports, and now international arbitration.

For ordinary Bangladeshis struggling with high prices and shaky banks, the question feels almost personal: how does someone who grew so rich here suddenly decide the country is no longer good enough to call home?

The timeline is telling. In July 2020, the then Awami League government accepted Saiful Alam’s application to renounce his Bangladeshi citizenship.

He and his family reportedly surrendered their Bangladeshi passports in October 2022 and acquired Singaporean citizenship (Singapore does not allow dual nationality).

After the political change in 2024, the High Court stepped in — notably in November 2025 — staying that earlier government decision.

For now, the courts continue to treat him as a Bangladeshi citizen, and the legal chess game continues.

Why the determined push to cut formal ties? Critics, including officials from Islami Bank who approached the court, paint a blunt picture.

They allege the group borrowed heavily — thousands of crores, often routed through layered companies — and questions remain about where much of that money ultimately went.

When recovery efforts gained momentum under the new realities, changing passports began to look like strategic insurance.

As a claimed Singaporean investor, Saiful Alam’s representatives can invoke the 2004 Bangladesh-Singapore Bilateral Investment Treaty and have moved toward arbitration at ICSID, arguing that regulatory actions amount to unfair treatment.

From the other side, the family and their lawyers maintain that these steps are necessary to protect legitimate investments from what they describe as “intimidation” and arbitrary regulatory moves.

They argue international law should shield genuine foreign investors.

That argument has some merit in principle — investment treaties exist to give confidence to outsiders.

But the case feels different when most of the business empire was built while Saiful Alam was a Bangladeshi citizen, relying on local deposits and operating deep inside the domestic system.

A passport switch years later raises difficult questions about whether it can neatly rewrite that history.

This saga touches something bigger than one businessman.

It forces us to revisit how banking and big business operated during the previous regime.

Reports of massive defaults linked to the group have circulated for years, with staggering figures mentioned in parliament and court filings.

Whether every number stands up to final scrutiny is for the courts to decide, but the pattern of close influence over certain financial institutions is difficult to ignore.

When major borrowers sat uncomfortably close to those managing the banks, ordinary depositors were always at risk.

At the same time, caution is necessary. Not every large default equals deliberate wrongdoing, and mounting a strong legal defence is not the same as admitting guilt.

The authorities today have a clear responsibility: recover public money firmly, but without crossing into political score-settling.

Yet allowing high-profile figures to sidestep accountability simply by acquiring a foreign passport would damage public trust deeply.

The High Court has raised sharp questions, including why steps should not be taken to bring Saiful Alam back to face proceedings. That matters.

Citizenship carries weight, especially when someone’s factories, core assets, and deepest business connections remain rooted in Bangladesh.

International forums often examine the “genuine link” a person has with a country.

On that measure, Bangladesh appears to have a strong case.

For readers of The New Nation, this is more than legal drama. It is about faith in the system.

Millions of small savers entrusted their money to banks that later helped fuel these large empires.

They deserve to see serious, transparent recovery efforts rather than clever jurisdictional exits.

At the same time, Bangladesh must continue to welcome genuine investors — local or foreign — who play by the rules.

The path ahead requires more than headlines.

We need faster and cleaner loan recovery processes, stronger safeguards against bank capture by big borrowers, and clearer rules around citizenship, residency, and investment treaties to close potential loopholes.

Most importantly, we need consistency — a system where the law applies equally, regardless of how many factories one owns or which passport one now carries.

Saiful Alam’s persistent efforts to shed his Bangladeshi identity, starting with the 2020 acceptance of his application, may bring him short-term legal advantages.

But in the eyes of the public — and perhaps in a deeper sense of connection to the soil where his success was built — the story is far from settled. Bangladesh enabled his rise.

The nation now expects those who benefited most from its system to remain answerable when the time comes to settle the accounts. Nothing less will rebuild trust.