First woman Ag. CBN govrrnor retires

Dr. Mrs Sarah Alade, Deputy Governor in charge of Policy at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) retired from the bank on Wednesday after spending 23 years at the bank.

She urged the Governor of the apex bank, Godwin Emefiele to uphold the credibility of the bank.

Alade, who once served as acting Governor following the sack of Lamido Sanusi, now the Emir of Kano, said this at her send-off celebration.

In attendance was the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele; Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun; Minister of Budget and National Planning, Mr Udo Udoma; and international partners from IMF, World bank, amongst others.

“Throughout my period at the bank, I have one slight regret and that’s during the period I was acting governor. It was the time that the CBN was being investigated. It had never happened before that the activity of the CBN was under investigation.”

“We went for the IMF meetings and when we meet with investors, they asked us ‘what is happening? We understand that there was some financial mismanagement in the CBN.’ It was humiliating.”

“I think for me, that was a low point. The Credibility for this institution was eroded.”

“For an institution this important to be subjected to that, is bad. At the end of the day, it was not just CBN that suffered for it, but the economy as a whole did suffer.”

“So I want to encourage us that whatever we need to do, let us do it right. We must not subject this institution to that type of incident again,” she said.

Sharing her experience as acting Governor of the apex bank, Alade explained that the investigation paralysed activities at the bank.

“I remember that during that period, I was reminded every morning that we have four governors. The suspended governor, the governor in waiting, the acting governor and the investigating governor.”

“I remember that the investigating governor told us that there should be no initiative, no payments, no decisions making, nothing. The only thing we could do was to just maintain the bank.”

“So the bank was sort of paralysed. We could not do anything. For me, it was a humiliating experience, but we did the best we could,” she said.

At a send-forth party in her honour on Tuesday night, Governor of the Bank, Mr. Godwin Emefiele described her exit as ‘sad’ because ‘it is the exit of a colleague, friend, woman of virtue and someone who has done extremely well professionally and privately.’

According to him, Alade did an excellent job in representing ladies of CBN after spending 23 years at the bank.

“But in life, whatever has a beginning must have an end and it is best to bow out when the ovation is loudest. We thank her for her contributions to learning and it will be difficult to fill the gap she is leaving behind.”

Also, Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun described Alade as one of the brilliant and inspiring Nigerian women in finance.

She joined CBN in in 1993 as an assistant director in the Research Department, where she served as Head, State Government Finance Office and Head, Fiscal Analysis Division from the University of Ilorin, where she had lectured.

Alade is the first staff of CBN to be appointed a deputy governor and as the most senior deputy governor in 2015 when Mallam Sanusi Lamido was suspended as Governor, she became the acting Governor until Emefiele was appointed.

She served on the team of major policy studies and was involved in the preparation of CBN’s Monetary and Credit Policy proposals over the years.

The 1976 Economics graduate of the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) was appointed Director, Banking Operations Department in May, 2004 and in 2007, elevated to the position of deputy governor.

She also obtained a Masters in Commerce Degreee from the University of Melbourne, Australia in 1983 and PhD, Management Science (Operations Research) from the University of Ilorin in 1991.