Senate Seeks To Remove CBN Gov as Board Chairman

The Senate has taken a major step in its bid to remove the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as Chairman of the Board of the bank, in order to whittle the powers of the head of the apex bank.

The CBN Act No. 7 of 2007 makes any incumbent governor of the apex banking institution to also serve as the Chairman of its Board.

However, in a bill sponsored by Senator Umar Sadiq Suleiman (APC, Kwara North), which scaled second reading, the Senate seeks for appointment of a person other than a sitting CBN Governor to be the Chairman of the Board.

Also, the Senate through the bill, seeks to divest the Board of CBN, powers of determining and fixing salaries and allowances of its members and considering and approving the annual budget of the bank.

In his lead debate on the bill titled: “A bill for an Act to amend the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act No. 7 of 2007 to enable the appointment of a person other than the Governor as the Chairmen of the board”, Senator Umar said that apex banks all over the world had different persons as Chief Executive and Chairman of Board.

“This bill as clearly stated, seeks to divest the Governor of the CBN, chairmanship of the Board as obtainable in other countries of the world. A different person with requisite qualification and required knowledge on monetary and financial policies should be made Chairman of the Board.

“Separation of the two positions will enable any sitting CBN Governor to focus more on fiscal and monetary policies than politics of the institution,” the law maker added.