Cardoso: I’m Suspicious Of People With Commercial Banking Background Running CBN—Adams Oshiomhole

The Senator Representing Edo North, Adams Oshiomhole has said that he is suspicious of people who have commercial banking background managing the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Oshiomhole stated his position on Tuesday during the screening of the acting CBN Governor, Yemi Cardoso and his deputies: Emem Nnana Usoro, Muhammad Sani Abdullahi Dattijo, Philip Ikeazor, and Bala Bello.

The lawmaker said, “I want to differ very radically from what seems to be the general view. My view is I am suspicious of people whose main background comes from commercial banking because central banking is about policy. It’s not about marketing. It’s not about seeking profit. It’s about getting monetary policies right with a clear focus on specific macro-economic objectives. Whether it is job creation, stabilizing a price regime, interest regime, exchange rate regime, or all of that.

“Listening to their CVs, people who have managed banks that have gone into liquidation, that cannot be used as positive in their favour. The truth has to be told. I am not suggesting that any one of them is responsible.

“I am saying, that a doctor who parades the number of people who died under his care cannot forward that to me as a CV for me to appoint him as a surgeon general. I just need them to take note of that. But what we do in our small places of work, whether the survival of faith, goes to our credit, or discredit, so they should take note.”

Cardoso, the 66-year-old is a professional banker with several years of experience with Chase Merchant Bank, Citi Bank of Nigeria and Citizens International Bank.

Cardoso served in Lagos State as the first Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget for Lagos State.

Asides from Oshiomhole, Ndubisi Nwokoma, a professor of Financial Economics at the Department of Economics of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), had said Cardoso does not have a strong monetary policy background but has proven himself in fiscal policy decisions and the banking sector.

He argued that “You must be able to look at the big picture of the economy, not just balance the books like the bankers would do.

“I think I have some little questions about the monetary policy content in his profile.”

The immediate past apex bank governor, Godswill Emefiele was a former Deputy Managing Director of Zenith Bank Plc and rose to the post of Director. Emir Sanusi Lamido Sanusi who Emefiele replaced as the CBN boss rose to the rank of General Manager of United Bank for Africa and later became a board member and executive director in charge of risk management at First Bank of Nigeria.