Business
Nigeria: Central Bank Governor Sanusi to step down in June 2014 – investors concerned in run up to 2015 Presidential election
Lagos-based Vetiva Capital Management Ltd. said in an October 28 report that potential candidates include Sanusi’s 4 deputies – Sarah Alade, Suleiman Barau, Tunde Lemo and Kingsley Moghalu – and Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, the CEO of Access Bank Plc., Nigeria’s fifth-biggest lender by market value.
Appointed in 2009 during a debt crisis, Sanusi oversaw a 620 billion-naira (US$3.9 billion) bank bailout and fired the chief executives of 8 of the country’s 24 banks after an audit found evidence of mismanagement and reckless lending. Inflation has slowed to 7.8 percent in October from 13.2 percent in May 2009, the month before Sanusi took office.
Investors are worried that Jonathan may appoint a governor who is less inclined to challenge overspending by lawmakers and kowtow to pressure from the Finance Ministry to lower interest rates. Sanusi, who drew criticism from members of parliament opposed to his push for spending curbs on salaries, fought off plans by lawmakers last year to amend rules that would curtail the governor’s powers over the central bank.
Access Bank’s Aig-Imoukhuede, 47, said in an interview on November 19 that it is too early for interest-rate cuts even though inflation has slowed, indicating he would stick to the central bank’s price stability goals. He declined to comment on his chances of succeeding Sanusi.
Moghalu, who is deputy governor in charge of financial system stability, and Ugochukwu Okoroafor, a spokesman for the Abuja-based central bank, declined to comment on possible candidates to succeed Sanusi.
Sanusi, an economist by training and a former CEO of First Bank of Nigeria Plc, has said he never intended to extend his contract. When he leaves, he plans to take a short break, perhaps study Mandarin, before ideally working at a think-tank focusing on economic policy-making in Africa, he said in an interview on Nov. 22 with Bloomberg TV’s African Business Weekly program.
Sanusi is “extraordinarily talented,” Jim O’Neill, the former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, said in an interview in Lagos. “I part think of him as the Alex Ferguson of central banking,” referring to the former Manchester United manager who is the most successful coach in British history. “He’s a tough act to follow,” said O’Neill.
