What Yemi Cardoso Must Do

By

Jesutega Onokpasa

With Olayemi Michael Cardoso’s emergence as Central Bank Governor, Nigerians expect a new dawn in monetary policy and a long awaited departure from the horrid rot of the Godwin Emiefele years which saw our country’s apex bank decompose into a cesspit of satanic corruption and truly shameful incompetence.

My assessment, including from information not necessarily in the public domain, is that Governor Cardoso has started well.

Mr Cardoso is an intellectual to the core, a quiet man not given to blowing his trumpet or hankering after publicity.

He will just have to come to terms with the fact that central banking is also very much a publicity stunt and necessarily so.

Thankfully, Mr Cardoso, unlike Mr Emiefele, is no con artist.

Nevertheless, he must learn to engage the public in order to rebuild trust and confidence in the apex bank.

That Emiefele was always up and about engaging the public was not the problem; it is the fact that he was doing so while all the time gaslighting and duping Nigerians that is the unforgivable sin that terrible man committed against this nation.

Central banking, like most other facets of serving the public, is necessarily also optical, besides being the serious business of apex banking.

The public must trust that their apex bank is indeed theirs and that its Governor is actually working for them.

The backlash that greeted the recent lifting of forex restrictions on certain imported items is due more to poor communication from the Central Bank than because the change, in and of itself, was necessarily wrong.

The bank must therefore do much better, going forward.

I’m no economist but my projection is that as Mr Cardoso dismantles the diabolical cartel at the CBN, amongst other things, the “official” exchange rate will keep creeping up while the parallel rate hopefully inches downwards.

Ideally, this would see us coming to a point of convergence wherein the difference between the two is nonexistent or at worst negligible, even to the point that there is no longer an incentive to withdraw forex from one’s domiciliary accounts and head for the black marketeers when you can get good value by simply converting your forex on your laptop or smart phone.

The lawyer in me does not purpose to teach banking to the chartered accountant in Yemi Cardoso but he must know that the Central Bank he just resumed at is perhaps the very worst public institution in this country and must be restored to sanity, even by fire, by force.

Governor Cardoso must assert the independence of the CBN and be prepared to be stubborn even as nitwits on social media excoriate him over what they barely understand and politicians panic in the face of unschooled public opinion.

He is our central banker, we trust him and will back him to deliver for our national economy.

Indeed, I will be overjoyed but not surprised that Yemi Cardoso succeeds – he is just not the kind of guy to fail.

Nevertheless, it is very easy for even the very best to underperform in this country and I think for our own good, Mr Cardoso will be needing all the help, support and understanding of the rest of us, going forward.

There are many things Governor Cardoso can and must do while tackling exchange rates and other challenges of monetary policy.

Banking in this country is totally unhinged with banks behaving more like shady outfits rather than the bastions of reliability and trust that frames the very concept of banking.

There are quick wins Mr Cardoso can go for to, in turn, win the confidence of Nigerians as we weather the present economic storm that promises to last for a while yet.

He could quickly ensure that Nigerian bankers stop behaving like cutthroats, common criminals and high-end crooks at the expense of their customers.

The phenomenon of failed POS transactions without reversals is a problem the CBN could quickly tackle that would greatly endear it to Nigerians.

To the average bank customer such funds are stranded while in reality they are actually still with their banks.

Only God knows if some people, somewhere, are not steadily stealing such monies.

There are numerous other problems with banking in this country that Cardoso could resolve that would instill greater confidence of the general public in the government and in the apex bank.

There are those salivating for President Bola Tinubu to fail and for everything he touches to flounder.

I don’t know how their brains are wired because if they were reasoning well, they should realize that your President’s success is the success of your country, therefore ultimately to your own benefit.

I hope and pray my President succeeds and a critical part of that success shall proceed from the bowels of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Onokpasa, a lawyer, was a member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Campaign Council, and writes from Abuja.