The Central Bank of Nigeria has reaffirmed that the 1,000 employees who exited the organization in December 2024 did so voluntarily, without any form of coercion.
CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, provided this clarification on Friday in Abuja during an investigative hearing by the House of Representatives’ ad-hoc committee.
The committee is probing the circumstances surrounding the employees’ exit and how the N50 billion severance package for the affected staff was determined.
Represented by Bala Bello, the Deputy Director of Corporate Service at the CBN, Cardoso emphasized that the departures were facilitated under the voluntary Early Exit Program, ensuring full benefits for participants.
He explained, “The Early Exit Program, Restructuring, and Re-organization are essentially strategies to enhance organizational performance by aligning roles with the right personnel. The manpower requirement of the bank is actually met.
“I’m very happy to mention that the early exit program of the CBN is 100 percent 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.”
Cardoso further highlighted that such exercises are not unique to the CBN, noting their prevalence in both public and private sectors globally.
He said, “I believe several organizations across the world, and even within this country, both in terms of the private sector and the public sector, are undertaking similar exercises.”
Addressing the rationale behind the program, Cardoso pointed to challenges such as stagnation and limited career progression.
“In the past, we had instances in which cases of stagnation and lack of career progression appear. In an organization, you’ve got a pyramid where from each level to the next level, the gap keeps narrowing. If not, you are going to have a quasi-organization, an inverted pyramid.
“It gets to the level where you have, for example, 30 departments in the Central Bank. You cannot have 60 directors manning 30 departments. It’s not going to work.
“Once those vacancies are filled, it gets to a level where some people, even though they are very qualified, able, and willing, but the vacancies are not there. And then they got to a level where they are stagnated for a period of time.”
Earlier in the hearing, the chairman of the ad-hoc committee, Bello Kumo, stated that their task is to compile and submit a comprehensive report to the House of Representatives.
