The best solution to guard against future bastardization of the apex Bank of Nigeria, the Central Bank of Nigeria, is simply to statutorily separate the Board Chairmanship and Bank Governorship of the apex Bank of Nigeria, through the amendment of the Central Bank of Act (CBA) of 2007 of Nigeria!
As it’s now, the CBN Governor of Nigeria is both the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the apex Bank and the same time the Chairman of the Committee of Governors of the apex Bank!
The Board of Directors of the apex Bank consisted of 12 Members, with four (4) Executive Directors (i.e the four (4) Deputy Directors of the Bank) and the six (6) Non Executive Directors of the Bank, then the CBN Governor, as Chairman and the Secretary of the Board!
The Committee of Governors of the apex Bank consisted of the four (4) Deputy Governors, the Company Secretary and the CBN Governor as also the Chairman!
Additionally, the CBN Governor is also the Chairman of the Monetary Policy Commitee (MPC) of the apex Bank, along with the four (4) Deputy Governors and the other four external professionals!
The above inevitably make the CBN Governor of Nigeria to be more powerful and coupled with the assumed empirical independence of the apex Bank!
It may interest many of us to know that, empirical studies have shown a strong positive correlation, between the corporate effectiveness of a Central Bank and the corporate independence of the Bank – i.e the more independent a Central Bank of a country is from the politics and administrations of a Country, the more effective the Bank will be, in its onerous consensual task of ensuring monetary or financial stability – there is consensus among Economists (even though, Economist’s hardly agree, even if they are put end to end) that, the primary role of any Central Bank, not just Central Bank of Nigeria, is not issuances of a legal tender, being a banker of last resort, being a banker to the government, management of foreign reserves, but simply to ensure monetary or financial stability!
But, since Godwin Ifeanyi Emiefele was alleged to have proved, and is proving the fact that, Nigeria is not yet ripe for Independent Central Bank and Central Banking, then, political and administrative interventions, in the corporate business of the Central Bank of Nigeria, is not only politically and administratively desirable, but equally inevitable; abi how do you see am?
