I was just thinking of writing a Order Klonopin 2mg Online column on the new term limit imposed by the Central Bank of Nigeria on bank CEOs when Order Klonopin 2mg Online I saw
Is the CBN too powerful?
In the Order Klonopin 2mg Online national confusion over our president who has vanished into thin air, a Order Klonopin 2mg Online significant but little remarked event occurred earlier this week. The Central Bank announced that Order Klonopin 2mg Online 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 Order Klonopin 2mg Online the primary targets of this new policy appeared to be two of our most prominent bank chiefs, Tony Elumelu, who Order Klonopin 2mg Online engineered a takeover of UBA by the much smaller Standard Trust Bank that Order Klonopin 2mg Online he used to run six years ago; and Jim Ovia, who Order Klonopin 2mg Online built Zenith Bank from scratch and made it a ubiquitous presence.
The legality of the Order Klonopin 2mg Online CBN decision is hardly in question: we have a central banker so powerful that Order Klonopin 2mg Online it can dissolve the boards of banks, dismiss their executives, dictate their operations and Order Klonopin 2mg Online pretty much act in almost any way it pleases.
The necessity for Order Klonopin 2mg Online such level of authority is not hard to see. The banking system of any country plays an Order Klonopin 2mg Online outsize role in the national economy. Poorly regulated or supervised, banks are Order Klonopin 2mg Online quite capable of destroying the economy and impoverishing the rest of us. The United States barely dodged the Order Klonopin 2mg Online bullet in the last quarter of 2008, when its banks tottered and Order Klonopin 2mg Online nearly collapsed, bringing the world’s financial system down along with it. And the Order Klonopin 2mg Online level of sheer criminality in our banking system, exposed in the Order Klonopin 2mg Online past seven months only because a complicit Central Bank governor was replaced with a Order Klonopin 2mg Online more alert one, was an object lesson in the need to Order Klonopin 2mg Online guide the banking system with a firm hand.
No one can Order Klonopin 2mg Online deny that the wretched excesses of banking chiefs with supersized egos, exemplified by Cecilia Ibru at Oceanic Bank and Order Klonopin 2mg Online Erastus Akingbola at Intercontinental, made an aggressive posture by the Central Bank an Order Klonopin 2mg Online urgent imperative.
But the Order Klonopin 2mg Online question needs to be asked: should the Central Bank be assuming the Order Klonopin 2mg Online roles of board directors to dictate how long a chief executive may serve? Heavily regulated though they are, unlike, say, a Order Klonopin 2mg Online cement company or a flour mill, banks nonetheless remain the property of private investors, and Order Klonopin 2mg Online in the absence of a specific regulatory breach by identifiable bankers, should the Order Klonopin 2mg Online Central Bank be in the business of stipulating how long they may serve? Setting term limits, as a Order Klonopin 2mg Online general principle, of course works well in politics and government. The basic assumption, which is Order Klonopin 2mg Online well founded in our experience of the frailties of leaders, is Order Klonopin 2mg Online that power corrupts, and the earlier we can kick the bums out, generally the Order Klonopin 2mg Online better for the state.
This may, of course, not necessarily work in private enterprise. Bill Gates built Microsoft from Order Klonopin 2mg Online the scratch and ran it for 25 years. The mercurial Jack Welch, during a Order Klonopin 2mg Online 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 Order Klonopin 2mg Online ran IBTC for nearly 20 years, making it one of the Order Klonopin 2mg Online country’s most respected banks.
Central Bank officials justify their latest action thus: A banking license is Order Klonopin 2mg Online a rare privilege, granted on the implicit assumption that the Order Klonopin 2mg Online holder will act in the highest traditions of prudence and Order Klonopin 2mg Online restraint, and essentially run a bank in the best interests not only of depositors and Order Klonopin 2mg Online shareholders but of the public at large. Needless to say, many of our most powerful bankers failed that Order Klonopin 2mg Online test in recent years, culminating in last year’s crisis that Order Klonopin 2mg Online has forced the treasury to pony up about N1 trillion to Order Klonopin 2mg Online 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 Order Klonopin 2mg Online banks are unique because they hold custody of other people’s money to Order Klonopin 2mg Online trade with, with the clear understanding in the public mind that Order Klonopin 2mg Online the government, by giving them such a right, is putting the Order Klonopin 2mg Online full faith and credit of the public treasury behind them. And this Order Klonopin 2mg Online is not simply a shareholder matter. In general, for every one naira shareholders place in a Order Klonopin 2mg Online bank, the public deposits six, seven, eight, maybe even N20. This distinguishes a Order Klonopin 2mg Online bank from Guinness or Chicken Licken.
Crucially, officials argue that Order Klonopin 2mg Online our recent experience makes it a matter of prudence and commonsense to Order Klonopin 2mg Online impose limits on the tenure of banking chiefs. “The certainty that Order Klonopin 2mg Online they can stay as long as they wish and maybe even transmute to Order Klonopin 2mg Online 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 Order Klonopin 2mg Online rub. Those leery of a Central Bank with untrammeled powers say that Order Klonopin 2mg Online the CBN, by making such a sweeping rule regarding tenure, is Order Klonopin 2mg Online inadvertently admitting its own failure to regulate and supervise the banking system. Were the Order Klonopin 2mg Online CBN competent in the discharge of its duties, it would have Order Klonopin 2mg Online had a bit more confidence to prevent widespread abuse by bank CEOs and Order Klonopin 2mg Online 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 Order Klonopin 2mg Online point out that Tunde Lemo, a powerful deputy governor of the Order Klonopin 2mg Online CBN, was directly in charge of banking supervision over the past few years that Order Klonopin 2mg Online the most reckless behaviour on the part of bank CEOs occurred. It would not be Order Klonopin 2mg Online unfair, and might even be somewhat generous, to accuse Mr. Lemo of negligence. But a Order Klonopin 2mg Online term limit apparently does not apply to him.
It is Order Klonopin 2mg Online 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 Order Klonopin 2mg Online announce that a succession plan was in place and appears to Order Klonopin 2mg Online want a tidy exit that does credit to the UBA, as he makes clear elsewhere in this Order Klonopin 2mg Online newspaper.
Our view is Order Klonopin 2mg Online 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 Order Klonopin 2mg Online wary of a government official with power to do almost anything.
We will remain vigilant.
Recent Comments