Buoyed by Senate President Bukola Saraki’s directive that the Senator Rafiu Ibrahim-led Committee on Banking, Insurance and Finance should submit preliminary report ahead of the final screening of the two Deputy Governors and four members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) next week, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, on Thursday expressed hope that the long-delayed meeting could hold in the first week of April at the earliest.
CNBC Africa quoted Emefiele as saying in a telephone interview that he expects the screening of the candidates to be concluded soon so that the meeting would hold.
“The MPC will certainly hold by latest the first week in April,” Emefiele said.
“The good thing is that the main decision the MPC would have taken, which is bordering on price stability, or altering the price dynamic today, we are not seeing the need right now to alter the price mechanism,” he added.
The year’s first meeting which should have held in the third week of January and the second for would have held around March 19 and 20, 2018 where postponed for lack of a quorum. The MPC has just four out of 12 positions and requires at least six members for a meeting to hold.
The deputy governor-nominees to be cleared are Mrs. Aisha Ahmad, former executive director at Diamond Bank Plc, who was nominated by Muhammadu Buhari, in October 2017; and Edward Lametek Adamu, who is currently Director of Human Resources at the apex bank. Ahmad and Adamu are to replace Dr. Sarah Alade, who retired in last May and Suleiman Barau, who served until December.
Nominees of the MPC scheduled for Senate confirmation are: Prof. Adeola Adenikinju (Energy Economist, University of Ibadan), Dr. Aliyu Sanusi (Associate Profession, Economics, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria), Dr. Robert Asogwa (Team Leader, Inclusive Growth Unit of the United Nations Development Programme, Abuja); and Mrs Asheikh Maidugu (PhD holder in Development Economics and International Development, former lecturer in Economics at University of Maiduguri, former Chief Operating Officer at the Debt Management Office, now a Director at the Federal Inland Revenue Services).