Nobody forced 1,000 disengaged staff to leave – CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria has again clarified that the 1,000 staff members who were disengaged in December 2024 were not forced to quit the apex bank.

The CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso stated this on Friday in Abuja at an investigative hearing of the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee probing the circumstances leading to the exit of the staff members and how the sum of N50bn severance package for the affected persons arrived at.

This is as the CBN boss added that the affected persons opted to disengage through the voluntary Early Exit Programme with payment of full benefits.

Represented by Deputy Director, Corporate Services, Bala Bello, Cardoso explained that the Early Exit Programme, Restructuring and Re-organisation “Are basically ways and means through which the performance of an organisation is optimised by ensuring that round pegs are put in right holes. The manpower requirement of the bank is actually met.

“The man loading, which is the key responsibilities, key performance indicators of the bank, vis-a-vis the number of people driving the performance of that bank, is at a level where it’s optimum, balancing the human resource requirement, the capital requirement, the skill requirement, as well as the IT requirement of the bank.

“You are very much aware that the entire world is going through a process of digitising its operations. And then once that is done, a lot of opportunities are created, just like a lot of redundancies are also equally created.

“And you have had instances in which, in the past, the request for staff to actually exit the bank voluntarily actually emanated on the part of the staff. And I believe the Central Bank is not necessarily the first organisation to have done that.

“I’m very happy to mention that the early exit program of the CBN is 100 per cent voluntary. It’s not mandatory. Nobody has been asked to leave, and nobody has been forced to leave. It’s a completely voluntary programme that has been put in place.”

He also noted that the exercise is not restricted to government agencies alone, saying, “I believe several organisations across the world, and even within this country, both in terms of the private sector and the public sector, are undertaking similar exercises.”

Continuing, Bello added, “In the past, we had instances in which cases of stagnation and lack of career progression appear. I mean, in an organisation, you’ve got a pyramid where from each level to the next level, the gap keeps narrowing. If not, you are going to have a quasi-organisation, an inverted pyramid.

“It doesn’t work. It gets to the level where you have, for example, 30 departments in the Central Bank. You cannot have 60 directors, manning 30 departments. It’s not going to work.

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“Once those vacancies are filled, it gets to a level where some people, even though they are very qualified, able and willing, but the vacancies are not there. And then they got to a level where they are stagnated for a period of time.”

Speaking earlier, the Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee, Bello Kumo noted that the Committee’s responsibility is to submit the report to the House.

He said, “Let me start by saying that the House of Representatives, the 10th National Assembly, understand that CBN is implementing the Restructuring, Reorganising and the Early Exit Program. I don’t know whether the CBN Governor can explain or brief this committee on the objectives of the Restructuring, Reorganising and Early Exit Programme to this committee.

“Can you explain the Early Exit Program and what you intend to achieve with it? When it starts, when it will end, and what is the connection?” he asked.