Browsing: CBN

In 2001, during my postgraduate program in Montpellier, South France, one of the most observable features of banks in France was the sparse population in banking halls. You can hardly see ten people in the banking halls, comprising bank workers and customers. The only reason for a customer to be in the banking hall is to open a new account or negotiate a loan, not to withdraw cash or make a deposit. ATMs perfectly serve these functions. Even when you need a bank statement, a printing machine is poised at the gate for the customer’s self-service. Then, banking operations in France were about 70% digital. I am happy today in Nigeria; we are almost reaching where developed countries like France were over twenty years ago in banking operations. The advent of ICT has globalized all developmental sectors and made banking services effective, efficient, and timely. Nigeria has the potential and wherewithal to be on par with any nation in ICT and innovative technologies for the nation’s development. However, we still face poor infrastructure, human resistance against change, sabotage by the beneficiaries of the old order, and other mundane and archaic reasons to slow down progress. The plan to relocate the Central Bank of Nigeria from Abuja to Lagos can be viewed within this context. 

The destabilizization agenda of the North can be traced back to the failed coup attempts of the First Republic. Lieutenant Colonel Bukar Suka Dimka, a northerner from Plateau state, initiated the northern chapter of the plot by assassinating the then Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed. Another northern military officer, Gideon Okar from Benue, further revealed the agenda by announcing the purported excision of Northern Nigeria from the rest of the country.