CBN: Cardoso Pushes For Control

By Bayo Bernard, Business Editor

No fewer than 20 directors in the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, have had their appointments terminated recently as part of the ongoing restructuring in the Nigeria’s apex bank following the scandal that rocked the Godwin Emefiele-led administration.

Emefiele was sacked last July by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who appointed Yemi Cardoso, a former commissioner who served under him as governor to take over from him.

The former CBN boss is currently under probe by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC who have arraigned him in court for sundry allegations.

Since he came to office last year, Cardoso has been trying to reinvent the bank in line with the New Hope mantra of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, analysts in the sector said.

Apart from his promise to recapitalize commercial banks in the country to align with President Tinubu’s plan to robustly expand the nation’s economy to the $1 trillion mark in few years, Cardoso has also set his gaze on the bank’s personnel.

Keen watchers in the sector said his quest to rejig the bank’s workforce may not be unconnected with his quest to assert control over the government bank by removing what he considered the footprints of his predecessor.

Cardoso recently stamped his authority by relocating some critical offices of the bank to Lagos from Abuja albeit in a controversial manner, considering the outbursts that greeted the move, particularly from key elements in the northern part of the country who read ethnic meaning to it.

A chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Senator Ali Ndume had described the CBN action as a ‘mistake’.

Ndume, who is the Senate Leader and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Army, said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had been misadvised by the CBN governor to approved the relocation of those offices to Lagos.

“All these Lagos boys that are thinking that Lagos is Nigeria are just misinforming or advising the president wrongly. The regulators or the financial institutions are supposed to be in Abuja. Now, you want them to move because you say Lagos is the commercial capital. This is one of the mistakes,” Ndume said.

The senator said further: “And I’m sure the president will reverse it, because it doesn’t work. You can’t have two capitals or is the CBN governor going to be operating from Lagos and headquarters of the CBN is in Lagos.”

Cardoso’s critics have accused him of trying to Lagolise the CBN in the same manner, allegedly, President Tinubu has populated his government with mostly appointees from Lagos who served under him while he was the governor of the state.

In spite of the allegations, sources in the CBN told the magazine that Cardoso remained unfaced to critics’ complaints that he’s trying to assert himself by weeding out some officials who worked under Emefiele, particularly those said to have been indicted for corruption by the Special Investigator Jim Obaze appointed by the president last year to probe Emefiele tenure in the bank.

Recall that President Tinubu recently reconstituted the CBN Board of Directors, having appointed four Deputy Governors to work with Cardoso last September.

Those close to the Presidency informed the magazine that most of these appointments were based on the recommendation of Cardoso, who impressed it on the president that he needed “to work with friendly and competent officials’ who are capable of assisting him to turn around the bank.

The CBN governor obviously had his way with the president on the appointments of deputy governors and the board, he has now extended his tentacles to the department heads with the aim of bringing in new people who aligns with his goal as the country’s top financial regulator, critics said.

In a deft move last week, the CBN governor sacked some directors. The termination of appointments cut across key departments in the bank in the government-controlled bank, according to insiders privy to the issue.

No fewer than 10 directors were believed to have been relieved of their appointments for various reasons, including those said to have been indicted for corruption by Obaze.

The bank is said to have prepared another batch of directors to be sacked from their positions for various reasons in the next few days.

Instructively, the memo sent to the sacked officials did not indicate what offence they committed that led to their sack, according to sources in the bank.

The sacked officials are now angry, and are prepared to contest their sack in the court, because they consider the CBN action to be illegal and unfair.

“Some of us have served in the CBN for many years, putting in our best and youthfulness to ensure that the government succeeds, through the bank, in its monetary policies. Somebody just came over night, and said we must go without any fault on our part, or indictment whatsoever,” one of the directors who craved anonymity told the magazine yesterday.

The source sated further: “we are ready to go to court to contest this action, no matter how long it takes, we will not let our sack go unchallenged.”

Some of the sacked directors, sources said, had been asked to exit the bank without any severance package.

Clearly, those affected in the ongoing restructuring in CBN appear not prepared to swallow Cardoso’s painful pill without a fight.