Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) at the weekend was conferred with the ‘Public Sector Icon award by Vanguard Newspaper.
Emefiele assumed office as the 10th indigenous governor of the Central Bank in June 2014, the CBN, under his leadership, has had to come up with new strategies to navigate the Nigerian economy through hurdles such as the challenge of foreign exchange inflow, the exchange rate, the economic recession, stagflation, financial inclusion and the gap in the value chains of majority of crops in Nigeria.
In the course of Emefiele’s tenure as governor, the Bank introduced critical interventions such as the Nigeria Electricity Market Stabilisation Facility, NEMSF, the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading-Payment Assurance Facility, NBET-PAF, the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative, and the Shared Agent Network Expansion Facility, to directly support enterprises with huge potential for job creation, conservation of foreign exchange, import substitution as well as financial stability.
With the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19 came global health and economic challenges, which Nigeria was not immune from.
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However, like every other proactive Central Bank In the world, the CBN stood up to be counted. Some of the measures taken by the Emefiele-led team to mitigate the adverse impact of the pandemic on households and businesses were: Mobilisation of key stakeholders in the Nigerian economy through the CACOVID alliance, which led to the provision of over N27bn in relief materials to affected households, and the set-up of 39 isolation centres across the country, Creation of N100 billion Target Credit Facility (TCF), for affected households and small and medium enterprises through the NIRSAL Microfinance Bank.
Emefiele was born on August 4, 1961, in Lagos State, Nigeria. He hails from Ika South Local Government Area of Delta State. He obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree in Banking and Finance at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) Degree in Finance, winning the Best Graduating Student Award.
Before his career in banking, he was a lecturer in finance and insurance in two Nigerian universities.
