Godwin Emefiele’s tenure as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which began in June 2014, has coincided with a challenging time for the country. Faced with a precipitous decline in the price of crude oil, a cooling global economy and the normalisation of monetary policy by the US Federal Reserve, Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth has slumped from 6.3% in 2014 to a forecast contraction of -1.8% in 2016, according to the International Monetary Fund.
These conditions have made the implementation of the CBN’s core mandate – which includes the effective and efficient implementation of monetary and exchange rate policy, and the management of the financial sector – all the more difficult. But under Mr Emefiele’s leadership, the central bank has focused more widely on economic development issues. This has led to the implementation of policies designed to stimulate domestic growth but that have been perceived to be unorthodox.
