Emefiele’s Recognition and Silencing of Distractors

By Stanley Ebube

Recently, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, was listed in the Forbes Africa Undiscovered Series for Nigeria.

Forbes Africa Undiscovered Series is an exclusive list of Nigerians who have been crucial in rebuilding and contributing to the Nigerian growth story in recent times.

Each year, Forbes Africa looks for resilient game-changers, self-starters, innovators, entrepreneurs and disruptors who have been leading ideas and industries while purposefully contributing to nation-building and positively impacting the lives around them.

The 2022 list is a selection of Nigeria’s brightest achievers spanning real estate, oil and gas, corporate leaders, technology innovators, business people, media professionals, policy shapers and advocates.

Other notable Nigerians who made the 2022 list include: Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Cosgrove, Umar Abdullahi; Founder and CEO of Flutterwave, Olugbenga Agboola; GMD/CEO of Zenith Bank Plc, Ebenezer Onyeagwu, amongst others.

Apart from being deserved, Emefiele’s name on the list is a positive disruption from the myriad of media attacks the CBN governor has recently been subjected to for reasons only known to his aggressors. It is also testament to the tremendous work Emefiele has been doing as the chairman of Nigeria’s reserve bank.

Ever since his name popped up as a likely contender for the 2023 presidential election, Emefiele has endured unreasonable and unwarranted criticism and distraction from individuals and groups alike. This is despite a seemingly satisfactory response he has provided about his future and focus on his job as the boss of the apex bank.

Despite the relentless activities of mischief makers, Emefiele has stayed true to his mandate and has focused on his job of ensuring monetary and price stability, maintaining external reserves, providing economic and financial advice to the federal government and promoting a sound financial system in Nigeria.

Recently, the CBN governor launched the 100 for 100 Policy for Production and Productivity (PPP), a CBN intervention designed to stimulate investments in Nigeria’s priority sectors with the core objective of boosting production and productivity.

Also recently, Emefiele launched the Bank Neutral Cash Hubs, a cash collection service that will provide a platform for customers to make cash deposits and receive value irrespective of the bank with which their account is domiciled.

He also signed a binding agreement between the Infrastructure Corporation of Nigeria (InfraCorp) and the Independent Asset Managers to develop the country’s infrastructure. Under the arrangement, InfraCorp, a N15trillion infrastructure fund, will provide N1trillion seed capital to make finance available for capital projects across the country.

Under Emefiele, the CBN has been able to leverage on the developmental component of its mandate as the proactive tool to support the real economy and other sectors, which are the elastic sectors of the economy for enhanced economic growth and development. Because the existence of certain macroeconomic fundamentals and conditions for CBN to be strictly orthodox are inexistent or limited, Emefiele has taken ‘thinking out of the box’ to an exciting level since becoming head of the apex bank.

In the past eight years, he has laid a solid foundation for a vibrant economy supported by macroeconomic stability. Despite a combination of internal and external challenges, he is achieving this by looking inward and propping up the non-oil sector, which mainly comprises agriculture, manufacturing and services.

Recognitions, such as the Forbes Africa Undiscovered Series for Nigeria, are a reminder that Emefiele’s efforts and achievements are being observed far beyond the shores of Nigeria. His accomplishments are well documented and acknowledged by many, including naysayers and distractors.

Ebube wrote in from Abuja.

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