The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says the 1,000 staff members disengaged in December 2024 were not forced to quit the apex bank.

CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso said this at an investigative hearing of the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee probing the circumstances leading to the exit of the staff members in Abuja on Friday, January 3, 2025.

The committee is also probing how the N50 billion severance package for the affected CBN officials was arrived at.

Speaking before the lawmakers, Cardoso, who was represented by the CBN Deputy Director of Corporate Services, Bala Bello, said the 1,000 officials of the apex bank opted to disengage through the voluntary Early Exit Programme with payment of full benefits.

The CBN boss stated 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.”

Reps probe planned retirement of 1,000 CBN officials

He added: “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.”

The Star