What About Islamic Banking?
On July 8, 2011 · In Editorial Tweet

WE are a country of debaters. The issues do not matter, the personalities are unimportant – knowledge is the least of the considerations in these engagements that are remarkable for their tendency to heighten tension in the country.

More than half of those commenting on Islamic banking do not know what it is. The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has helped in spreading the ignorance and confusion. It is more interested in saying what Islamic banking is not rather than what it is and ways in which it can help the economy.

Nobody should be blamed for thinking the CBN will make a mess of Islamic banking. While it has worked in other places, the CBN has notoriety for creating problems where there are none and complicating issues that are simple enough for all to appreciate.

Without educating the public on Islamic banking, CBN is jumping into the scheme and asking those opposed to it to head to the court. Is that the best approach? Even among those who claim this brand of banking has religious connotations, the challenge would be for the CBN to educate them. Nothing of that nature is going on, the interests lie in CBN emphasising its powers as if the law is everything.

Who would be the beneficiaries of Islamic banking? Do they know anything about it? What type of Islamic banking would the CBN practise? Would it be peculiar to Nigeria? Do Nigerians have the moral rectitude Islamic banking demands?

Everybody knows that Islamic financial services, including mutual funds and insurance, are available in other parts of the world. Is that a major reason for Nigeria getting into it? If too many countries do not practise Islamic banking would that be a reason for Nigeria not venturing into something that could be beneficial to unbanked rural Nigeria?

CBN governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi should descend from his imaginary importance and provide information that can result in informed comments about the procedures for Islamic banking in Nigeria. We are a different people. Our needs are different and the policies that will guide Islamic banking in Nigeria, if they are to succeed, must reflect those differences.

In addition, CBN must have a better reason for introducing Islamic banking rather than the fact that others practise it. How would it help our people? What are its drawbacks? There must be some and the regulatory framework must pay attention to them. There should be no rooms for assumptions.

Those who are afraid of the implementation of Islamic banking have great reasons to dread another Sanusi initiative. The CBN governor thinks more of the importance of his office than the services he is meant to provide. His arrogance gets on the way when people want to discuss his policies; a typical example is the mess he is making with the eight banks he claimed to have rescued.

How often has he recanted his positions midway? Sanusi must learn to have the humility public office demands. Nigerians have every right to know what he intends to do on their behalf. They have every right to reject his brilliant ideas and he is bound to act for the benefit of the people, always.

He must give Nigerians some credit. It is not enough to tell them Islamic banking is for their benefit, he must state how the benefit will be derived, yet it would be up to the people to say if they want it