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I was just thinking of writing a Buy Ambien Online Overnight column on the new term limit imposed by the Central Bank of Nigeria on bank CEOs when Buy Ambien Online Overnight I saw this thoughtful Next editorial Generic Valium Us:

Is the CBN too powerful?

In the Buy Ambien Online Overnight national confusion over our president who has vanished into thin air, a Buy Ambien Online Overnight significant but little remarked event occurred earlier this week. The Central Bank announced that Buy Ambien Online Overnight it was retroactively imposing a 10-year limit over the tenure of bank CEOs, effective July 31.

It was not lost on most discerning observers that Buy Ambien Online Overnight the primary targets of this new policy appeared to be two of our most prominent bank chiefs, Tony Elumelu, who Buy Ambien Online Overnight engineered a takeover of UBA by the much smaller Standard Trust Bank that Buy Ambien Online Overnight he used to run six years ago; and Jim Ovia, who Buy Ambien Online Overnight built Zenith Bank from scratch and made it a ubiquitous presence.

The legality of the Buy Ambien Online Overnight CBN decision is hardly in question: we have a central banker so powerful that Buy Ambien Online Overnight it can dissolve the boards of banks, dismiss their executives, dictate their operations and Buy Ambien Online Overnight pretty much act in almost any way it pleases.

The necessity for Buy Ambien Online Overnight such level of authority is not hard to see. The banking system of any country plays an Buy Ambien Online Overnight outsize role in the national economy. Poorly regulated or supervised, banks are Buy Ambien Online Overnight quite capable of destroying the economy and impoverishing the rest of us. The United States barely dodged the Buy Ambien Online Overnight bullet in the last quarter of 2008, when its banks tottered and Buy Ambien Online Overnight nearly collapsed, bringing the world’s financial system down along with it. And the Buy Ambien Online Overnight level of sheer criminality in our banking system, exposed in the Buy Ambien Online Overnight past seven months only because a complicit Central Bank governor was replaced with a Buy Ambien Online Overnight more alert one, was an object lesson in the need to Buy Ambien Online Overnight guide the banking system with a firm hand.

No one can Buy Ambien Online Overnight deny that the wretched excesses of banking chiefs with supersized egos, exemplified by Cecilia Ibru at Oceanic Bank and Buy Ambien Online Overnight Erastus Akingbola at Intercontinental, made an aggressive posture by the Central Bank an Buy Ambien Online Overnight urgent imperative.

But the Buy Ambien Online Overnight question needs to be asked: should the Central Bank be assuming the Buy Ambien Online Overnight roles of board directors to dictate how long a chief executive may serve? Heavily regulated though they are, unlike, say, a Buy Ambien Online Overnight cement company or a flour mill, banks nonetheless remain the property of private investors, and Buy Ambien Online Overnight in the absence of a specific regulatory breach by identifiable bankers, should the Buy Ambien Online Overnight Central Bank be in the business of stipulating how long they may serve? Setting term limits, as a Buy Ambien Online Overnight general principle, of course works well in politics and government. The basic assumption, which is Buy Ambien Online Overnight well founded in our experience of the frailties of leaders, is Buy Ambien Online Overnight that power corrupts, and the earlier we can kick the bums out, generally the Buy Ambien Online Overnight better for the state.

This may, of course, not necessarily work in private enterprise. Bill Gates built Microsoft from Buy Ambien Online Overnight the scratch and ran it for 25 years. The mercurial Jack Welch, during a Buy Ambien Online Overnight two-decade tenure, rebuilt General Electric into at one time the world’s largest company by market capitalisation. And in our own country, Atedo Peterside founded and Buy Ambien Online Overnight ran IBTC for nearly 20 years, making it one of the Buy Ambien Online Overnight country’s most respected banks.

Central Bank officials justify their latest action thus: A banking license is Buy Ambien Online Overnight a rare privilege, granted on the implicit assumption that the Buy Ambien Online Overnight holder will act in the highest traditions of prudence and Buy Ambien Online Overnight restraint, and essentially run a bank in the best interests not only of depositors and Buy Ambien Online Overnight shareholders but of the public at large. Needless to say, many of our most powerful bankers failed that Buy Ambien Online Overnight test in recent years, culminating in last year’s crisis that Buy Ambien Online Overnight has forced the treasury to pony up about N1 trillion to Buy Ambien Online Overnight rescue the banks lest the economy collapse. That’s a number with a lot of zeroes to clean up after Mrs. Ibru’s mess.

Officials also argue that Buy Ambien Online Overnight banks are unique because they hold custody of other people’s money to Buy Ambien Online Overnight trade with, with the clear understanding in the public mind that Buy Ambien Online Overnight the government, by giving them such a right, is putting the Buy Ambien Online Overnight full faith and credit of the public treasury behind them. And this Buy Ambien Online Overnight is not simply a shareholder matter. In general, for every one naira shareholders place in a Buy Ambien Online Overnight bank, the public deposits six, seven, eight, maybe even N20. This distinguishes a Buy Ambien Online Overnight bank from Guinness or Chicken Licken.

Crucially, officials argue that Buy Ambien Online Overnight our recent experience makes it a matter of prudence and commonsense to Buy Ambien Online Overnight impose limits on the tenure of banking chiefs. “The certainty that Buy Ambien Online Overnight they can stay as long as they wish and maybe even transmute to Buy Ambien Online Overnight bank chairman makes some CEOs act with impunity,” one senior regulator told us last week. “Knowledge that there will be change conditions behavior.”

There lies the Buy Ambien Online Overnight rub. Those leery of a Central Bank with untrammeled powers say that Buy Ambien Online Overnight the CBN, by making such a sweeping rule regarding tenure, is Buy Ambien Online Overnight inadvertently admitting its own failure to regulate and supervise the banking system. Were the Buy Ambien Online Overnight CBN competent in the discharge of its duties, it would have Buy Ambien Online Overnight had a bit more confidence to prevent widespread abuse by bank CEOs and Buy Ambien Online Overnight to punish rogue bank chiefs where the situation demands. As one senior banker tells us, “a one size fits all rule does not often work well.”

Cynics might feel free also to Buy Ambien Online Overnight point out that Tunde Lemo, a powerful deputy governor of the Buy Ambien Online Overnight CBN, was directly in charge of banking supervision over the past few years that Buy Ambien Online Overnight the most reckless behaviour on the part of bank CEOs occurred. It would not be Buy Ambien Online Overnight unfair, and might even be somewhat generous, to accuse Mr. Lemo of negligence. But a Buy Ambien Online Overnight term limit apparently does not apply to him.

It is Buy Ambien Online Overnight instructive that the bank chiefs immediately affected have refrained from raising any hackles regarding their sudden forced exit. In one fine example, Mr. Elumelu immediately got his board to Buy Ambien Online Overnight announce that a succession plan was in place and appears to Buy Ambien Online Overnight want a tidy exit that does credit to the UBA, as he makes clear elsewhere in this Buy Ambien Online Overnight newspaper.

Our view is Buy Ambien Online Overnight that, while the CBN governor had got most of the big things right so far in his turbulent nine-month tenure, one must always be Buy Ambien Online Overnight wary of a government official with power to do almost anything.

We will remain vigilant.