CBN as misguided Father Christmas
By Les Leba In view of the apparently ‘boundless’ funds at the disposal of Nigeria’s Central Bank for its independent interventions, observers, including the National Assembly have frowned at the proprietary and the shrouded protocol surrounding the values and the choice of beneficiaries of the apex bank’s bonanza. The CBN, however, insists that these interventions are in consonance with its enabling Act, and therefore distinguishes its cash gifts as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), in furtherance of its primary mandate for “price stability” to drive real economic growth. The following examples of CBN interventions in some sectors are by no means exhaustive; for example, Bayero University, Kano, has so far collected N1bn out of a projected N4bn donation; the University of Benin similarly got an ‘awoof’ of N500m a few months after Lamido Sanusi received an honourary award from that university. Lately, the media reported CBN’s donation of N10bn for infrastructure capacity and manp...