The Oyo State ministerial nominee, Oloye Abdulwaheed Adebayo Adelabu dissected some of the major problems affecting the Central Bank of Nigeria, which he mentioned is basically centered around the governance structure of supervising the apex bank.
Oloye Adelabu while answering questions during the senate screening on Tuesday. The first question was asked by the Senate President himself, Sen. Godswill Akpabio, if the CBN was in direct competition with the Federal Government from his time as the CBN deputy governor.
Adelabu in his reply appreciated the distinguished senators for the questions and speaking highly of his CV, he there after delved into the major ills confronting the CBN which includes lack of proper monitoring and supervising from the Presidency and other arms of government.
“Distinguished senators – thank you so much for the questions. I also want to thank you for speaking plainly about my CV thank you very much. I will start from the question by our revered Senate President – was CBN in competition with Federal government? Of course, CBN can never be in competition with the Federal Government because Central Bank of Nigeria is an economic arm of federal government which handles or oversees the monetary policy functions of Federal Government, the second arm is the ministry of finance, budget, planning, AGF, that oversee the fiscal policy.
“And technically I don’t really see anything wrong about the structure of CBN but the only issue which I will be open to this hallow chamber is around the governance structure of supervising the CBN itself. I want to state that power corrupts an absolute power corrupts absolutely, there are three highest decision making bodies in Central Bank of Nigeria – the Committee of Governors, Monetary Policy Committee and the Board of Directors. The CBN governor is the chairman of these three committees which is good, there is nothing bad in it, because all over the world, the independence of the CBN must be guaranteed but the governor is just the first among equals. There are five governors into central bank on Nigeria, the governor and four deputy governors, we must ensure that the appointment of four deputy governors must be independent of the central bank governor so they are not subservient to the governor himself.” He added
“Number two is the fact that the reporting line is the governor to the presidency and for five years the president may not see any of the deputy governors. There should be occasions, it could be once in a quarter, once in six months that the entire committee of governors will meet with Mr. President and they hear from their own perspective, there’s what we call minority opinions, in all the minutes of the COG, of the NPC and the Board of Directors, they are always documented, most of these controversy decisions coming out of the CBN were actually taken by either three out of five or four out of five. There’s always a minority opinion so far the three have the governor by they have their way, the minority will have their say, even they may have superior arguments, once in a while I believe the presidency should undertake to go through some of this minority opinions at the committee of governors meeting, at the board of directors meeting or monetary policy committee meetings, a number of issues may actually come out of it.” Adelabu said
“And lastly sir, I will also suggest that the economic management team of the country which comprises of the finance minister, the budget and national planning, the CBN governor, Attorney General of the Federation and some other relevant ministries must have some subtle oversights in-terms of interrogating a lot of decisions of Central Bank of Nigeria. If CBN knows that there is a body it is going to report to, in terms of the list of the companies and individuals, the allocated foreign exchange to, how the NPC arrived at the interest rate, the benchmark rate, the volume of money created, in terms of ‘BDÇ’ licence, payment system and a lot of other things, even development, finance, intervention and lending. they will be very very moderate and they will be careful because , this is an abnormal situation in the country, that must be handled unconventionally. He concluded
Thereafter, the Senate President, Senator Akpabio did a recap of Bayo Adelabu entire statement with a view to letting the Senate members comprehend the magnitude of issues raised by the ministerial nominee from Oyo State. He emphasised the importance of the Senate Assembly to look deeply into the key issues. He then asked Adelabu not to reply any more questions but to take a bow and go.
