1,000 Staff Retired Voluntarily, CBN Tells Reps

The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Olayemi Cardoso, has insisted that the 1000 staff of the bank, who disengaged in December 2024, were neither sacked nor forced to leave but they voluntarily resigned with full benefits.

Cardoso, who gave the explanation at an investigative hearing of the House of Representatives ad hoc committee led by the chief whip, Bello Kumo, into the disengagement of the 1000 workers and how the N50 billion terminal benefits were arrived at for them in Abuja.

The CBN explained that contrary to reports that the staff were sacked or forced to quit, they all left the bank out of their own volition.

Represented by the Deputy Director, Corporate Service, Bala Bello, the CBN boss further explained that the issue of the Early Exit Programme and the Restructuring as well as Reorganisation was to optimise the bank for enhanced efficiency.

According to him, “They are basically ways and means through which the performance of an organisation is optimised by putting and 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, Chairman, the entire world is going through a process of digitising its operations.

“Once that is done, a lot of opportunities would be 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, Mr Chairman and members of the committee, that the early exit programme of the Central Bank 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”.

Shedding more light on the issues, the CBN director said: “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. So nobody has been asked to leave.

“But people who are based on popular demand, I have to be humble, with a lot of humility, to tell you that this same programme that is taking place is not at the instance of the bank itself. “Of course, we have our own challenges, and we know where we want to take the bank to. That’s Cardoso and his team, myself included.

“But this popular request actually came from the staff.

“In the past, you have 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, you know, the gap keeps narrowing.