Finance Expert Suggests Who Should Replace CBN’s Emefiele, Zainab Ahmed

With Nigeria’s presidential election concluded, Nigerians have begun permutations on who will be appointed as the Minister of Finance and the ideal replacement for the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emefiele at the expiration of his tenure.

The Independent National Electoral Commission had on Tuesday announced the All Progressives Party candidate Bola Tinubu as the winner with 8.79 million votes.

The election has been described as flawed leading to the Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi, and the Peoples Democratic Party candidate Atiku Abubakar saying they will upturn the result in court.

Irrespective of the outcome, Nigeria’s ailing economy has been a source of concern for experts.

Paul Alaje, Partner and Senior Economist at the SPM Professionals said the next CBN boss and the Minister of Finance, Budget, Budget and and National Planning should be trained economists.

“For serious countries, economists are both in fiscal and monetary even trade policymakers. I don’t know about another institution, but the education that I have both locally and abroad regarding economics and business, there are things that are exclusive to economics as a study which is combining fiscal and rate and monetary,” Alaje said in an interview with THE WHISTLER.

Under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, the CBN Governor and the finance minister, Zainab Ahmed have been criticized for policies that a section of analysts believe are hurting the economy and the general well-being of citizens.

Emefiele is in charge of the monetary policy saddled with the responsibility of price stability but Nigeria’s inflation has hit a record 21.82 Per cent.

Also, the naira has been devalued from N170 per dollar in 2014 to N460.97 in March 2022. At the black market, it trades around N765/$.

Emefiele made a controversial naira redesign policy which was overruled by the Supreme Court on March 3, 2023.

Alaje said, “A minister of finance or CBN governor who is not grounded in economics is a mere administrator. They will expect technicians to explain to them and that is what we see most times in Nigeria.

“Charles Soludo was a professor of economics; we saw a major difference. Sanusi Lamido was not a professor but he tried his bit because he has a strong foundation in economics. So even when professors are talking to him, he has the foundation and he can relate to what they are saying. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former minister of finance, had a solid foundation in economics. The difference can we say for those who are directing our economy now?

“Do you know that there was a time ‘a journalist was in charge of the CBN’? Yes, a journalist, because he wrote about the economy and business in the newspaper the then head of State at that time, said it will be good for him to be CBN head and you can expect what will happen to the value of the naira.

“There are things that we don’t politicise. We don’t appoint based on feelings. It has to be based on competence. They are called key sectors of the economy. I’m of the opinion that let us have a fiscal coordinator as a separate minister apart from the Minister of Finance.

“The minister of finance in Nigeria has been reduced to payment of salaries, paying contractors, and so on. That is the least of fiscal.”

Emefiele has his Bachelor’s Degree in Banking and Finance and a Masters in Finance, while Ahmed studied Accounting and has Masters in Business Administration.

But the economist explained that the next finance minister should think beyond budget and salaries.

The economist said the fiscal policymakers in the next administration should look at a sector like housing and the number of jobs that housing can create.

He said, “When we spend on the direction of housing as a sector, we are going to employ those unemployed out-of-school children who have no education. When you are building mass housing, say 10,000 per state every year in Nigeria, you are going to crash homelessness and also employ a lot of Nigerians.

“Nigeria needs a minister that will be able to link it to unemployment, link it to poverty reduction, inflationary reduction, link it to the petroleum sector and the spending of government. That is the person that can coordinate.”

For instance, he said, a CBN governor who understands that a low-interest rate will propel cheap money for developers to erect affordable mass housing, will be helping even the fiscal policymakers indirectly.

Alaje added, “With this, unemployment will be reduced, and banditry and housing deficit will also be reduced. It also solves inflation problems because the price of houses will crash. Who can bring that thinking? It can’t be an engineer. So, the person can now look into the budget for housing, health, and the legal profession. The person can look at lawyers and say the work of lawyers is business and seek ways to avoid delays in cases.

“Monetary is not an accounting term, it is not an engineering term, and a legal term, it is an economic term. The decisions the Monetary Policy Committees of the CBN does is economic in nature. Fiscal is not accounting; it is an economic term.

“When we say trade in economics, it’s not buying and selling. It is international trade. Okonji-Iweala has since been upgraded as the chairperson of the World Trade Organisation. The world is not stupid. America will not be stupid to bring a nonentity to be head of the Fed. But for us, we prefer tomb-taking rather than competence.