The former Emir of Kano, HRH Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has stated that moving staff to operations in Lagos to make them more effective and operative is an economic policy.
“Moving staff to the Lagos office to streamline operations and make them more effective and reduce cost is a normal prerogative of management.”
Speaking as captured by the Nations in a statement on Thursday after the Arewa Consultative Forum kicked against the move, the former Central Bank Governor advised the CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso to ignore the Northern elites as Abuja is a federal capital and not a northern issue.
“Northern politicians will shout that this is moving from Abuja to Lagos. Abuja is a federal capital, not a northern issue. So long as this is a principled decision the noise should be ignored.”
“When I was about to license Jaiz Bank there was a lot of religious noise from CAN etc. Even enlightened people like Okey Emelamah were going to sue me in court on religious grounds. I ignored it and licensed the bank. Nothing happened.”
The 14th Emir of Kano said that “moving certain functions to the Lagos office (which is bigger than the Abuja head office) is an eminently sensible move”.
“In my mind what I would have done was to move FSS and most of Operations to Lagos such that the two Deputy Governors would be largely operating out of Lagos or, even if they were more in Abuja, the bulk of their operational staff would be in Lagos.
“Economic policy, corporate services, and all the departments reporting to the Governor directly such as Strategy, Audit, Risk management, Governors’ office, etc would remain in Abuja.”
“The question of locating functions is a STRATEGIC and not a tactical one. A proper analysis should be done to identify which roles are best suited to Lagos and which to Abuja.
“Once the logic is clear, the people then follow. Non-communication of strategic intent opens the door to mischievous misrepresentation and arbitrariness.
“I don’t like the idea of arguing that the office structure cannot handle the staff numbers. I am sure Julius Berger would refute that if they wanted to engage.”
“Individual situations should be considered. As much as possible we should be empathetic. For example, young mothers with kids in school who do not need to move can be prioritized to stay in Abuja or those with medical conditions, etc.
“My advice to the Governor is to go ahead with his policy. Once the CBN starts bending to political pressure on one thing it will continue doing so.”
Meanwhile, the administration led by President Bola Tinubu has assured that it has no plans to relocate the federal capital to Lagos State.
