The women’s presence, operation, and compensation have set tongues wagging across the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Senior staff members across the CBN’s 29 departments are fuming and grumbling over how the women, arbitrarily brought in by Governor Olayemi Cardoso as consultants, have amassed enormous powers enabling them to sometimes issue directives to departmental directors.
There is also widespread anger across the board over what some insiders describe as the “unbelievably high and obscene” compensation the consultants earn monthly.
Mr Cardoso assumed duties as CBN governor on 22 September 2023. Some insiders said the women arrived with him that day at the bank.
The women at the centre of this raging controversy are Nkiru Balonwu, founder of The Africa Soft Power Group, and Daphne Dafinome, a chartered accountant and chief operating officer of Crowe Dafinone, a Nigerian accounting firm.
There is a third “technical consultant” called Shola Phillips who joined Mr Cardoso’s kitchen cabinet from Citibank.
The consultants are now mockingly called “Cardoso women” across the bank. One source giggled when our reporter requested a further explanation of the term. “You should be able to decode what that means yourself,” the official said.
For instance, they queried the hiring of Ms Balonwu as a corporate communication consultant when the CBN has an elaborate, efficient, and well-staffed corporate communication department led by a director.
On the other hand, insiders said Ms Dafinone’s consultancy role is not clearly defined; she merely takes on any responsibility assigned to her by Mr Cardoso. Only recently, the governor tasked her with designing and implementing a controversial early exit programme to pay off at least 1,000 staff members into voluntary retirements.
“Why do you abuse your office to engage family and friends and make them millionaires this way? a staff member lamented. “It is disturbing because even Emefiele, with all his weaknesses, did not act with this impunity…
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