Sanusi Bows Out from CBN Next Year

Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the highly controversial, but influential governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has said he will stand down a governor of the bank when his current five-year tenure expires in 2014.
Mallam Sanusi, who has seen the rebirth of the troubled banking sector following forced capitalization, mergers and acquisition with a resultant resurgence in the financial industry said the job was too tasking.
Speaking in a interview with the London based Banker magazine, Mallam Sanusi stated that the CBN job he believes he has completed his assignment at the apex bank and would not been seeking a further tenure.
 “I will not be offering my services for a second term. The job is extremely demanding. I don’t think it’s something that I would like to do for 10 years. I also think I have certain skills and a temperament that are suitable for a certain phase. I’m a crisis central banker. I came at a time of crisis.
“I consider my job to have been to fix the crisis and restore stability, and to make sure we did that in such a way that no bank failed, no depositor or creditor lost money and fiscal costs (were minimized), which is why we tried to get the banks themselves to bear the costs.”
To reduce the cost to the government of its intervention, all banks are being charged an annual levy by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (Amcon), a state-owned bad bank created in 2010 to buy up toxic assets. Law-makers are working on an amendment to the Amcon Act, which will make such payments legally binding.
Mallam Sanusi, a former Risk-manager at First Bank plc, also has commendable words for Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Finance minister, who he credits with prudent fiscal management of the Nigerian economy.
 “From the time Ms Okonjo-Iweala came on board, there has been significant improvement. We (the central bank and finance ministry) have been speaking the same language. And you can see the results.
“With our monetary and fiscal policies, we have provided macroeconomic stability. But stability is not an end in itself. We need to take advantage of it and push forward with structural reforms. If we can do that, then we could easily reach double-digit growth and make it sustainable.”
 NigeriaCommunicationsWeek