By Pathfinder Reporter
Thursday January 25, 2024
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Former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has thrown his weight behind the plan of the Tinubu-led Government to relocate some departments of the CBN from Abuja to Lagos.
The dethroned 14th Emir of Kano in
a statement said that “moving certain functions to the Lagos office (which is bigger than the Abuja head office) is an eminently sensible move”.
The Senate Chief Whip, Ali Ndume, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and some other Northern people have kicked against the move by the Federal Government to return the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria ( FAAN) and relocate some departments of CBN to Lagos
While the ACF described the move as a deliberate plot against the Northern region,
Ndume said: “All these Lagos boys who are thinking that Lagos is Nigeria are just misinforming and advising the President wrongly.
“Those political cartels that are in the corridors of power are trying to misinform the President and we will tell the President. The President will take action.
“They are not doing any favor to Mr. President because this will have political consequences.”
Sanusi who was quoted by The Nation, said, “In my mind what I would have done was to move FSS and most of Operations to Lagos such that the two Deputy Governors would be largely operating out of Lagos or, even if they were more in Abuja, the bulk of their operational staff would be in Lagos.
“Economic policy, corporate services, and all the departments reporting to the Governor directly such as Strategy, Audit, Risk management, Governors’ office, etc would remain in Abuja.”
Sanusi continued: “Moving staff to the Lagos office to streamline operations and make them more effective and reduce cost is a normal prerogative of management.”
He said, “The question of locating functions is a STRATEGIC and not a tactical one. A proper analysis should be done to identify which roles are best suited to Lagos and which to Abuja.
“Once the logic is clear, the people then follow. Non-communication of strategic intent opens the door to mischievous misrepresentation and arbitrariness.
“I don’t like the idea of arguing that the office structure cannot handle the staff numbers. I am sure Julius Berger would refute that if they wanted to engage.”
On how the relocation of staff should be done, he suggested: “Individual situations should be considered. As much as possible we should be empathetic. For example, young mothers with kids in school who do not need to move can be prioritized to stay in Abuja or those with medical conditions, etc.
“My advice to the Governor is to go ahead with his policy. Once the CBN starts bending to political pressure on one thing it will continue doing so.
“Northern politicians will shout that this is moving from Abuja to Lagos. Abuja is a federal capital, not a northern issue. So long as this is a principled decision the noise should be ignored.”
“When I was about to license Jaiz Bank there was a lot of religious noise from CAN etc. Even enlightened people like Okey Emelamah were going to sue me in court on religious grounds. I ignored it and licensed the bank. Nothing happened,” he added.
Sanusi advised the present management of CBN to put its feet down and said that many employees of the apex bank are children of politically exposed Nigerians who would rather resign than relocate from Abuja to Lagos.
He advised the apex bank’s present management not to allow any pressure to cause them to reconsider their planned relocation and to be prepared to lay off any personnel who refused to move with them.
He said, “The problem we have now is that many employees are children of politically exposed persons, and their Abuja life and businesses are more important than the CBN work.
“The CBN is just an address for them and if they have to choose between their spoilt Abuja life and the job, they would gladly leave the CBN.
“All the more reason for the Governor to put his foot down and get rid of those elements; they are dangerous for the bank’s future.”
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