Nigerian President Bola Tinubu named prominent banker Wale Edun as his senior adviser on monetary policy, days after removing the controversial central bank governor and promising to overhaul an exchange rate policy that’s crippled investment in Africa’s largest economy.
Edun, former chair of Lagos-based investment bank Chapel Hill Denham Group, is seen as a market-friendly figure.
He served as commissioner of finance in Nigeria’s commercial capital of Lagos in 1999 and 2004, when Tinubu was governor. Edun is already advising the president in a more informal capacity and said Monday he expected to see Nigeria’s tangle of exchange rates unified “within a quarter.”
Tinubu named him and seven other senior advisers in a statement issued Thursday.
Nigerian bonds maintained their modest gains after the announcement. The dollar note due November 2047 was up 0.2 cents on the dollar to 71.26 as of 2:31 p.m. London time. Eight of the country’s 12 bonds in the Bloomberg Emerging Markets Sovereign Total Return Index rose, while three fell and one was little changed.
Only three weeks into his presidency, Tinubu has already scrapped a fuel subsidy that had been a long-standing burden on government finances and cost $10 billion last year. On Friday, he suspended Godwin Emefiele, chief architect of a set of unorthodox economic policies that investors said had caused confusion and undermined confidence.
Investors have so far welcomed Tinubu’s shift to a more market-oriented approach, but the newly-formed government faces a formidable challenge warding off a fiscal crisis and taking steps to relieve poverty in a country where 40% of the population lives on less than $2 a day.
The new advisory team also includes Olu Verheijen, former partner at Persistent Energy Capital LLC, who will lead a planned overhaul of the energy sector in Africa’s largest producer of crude oil.
Zacch Adedeji, a corporate tax and public finance expert, will lead government efforts to boost revenue generation, a priority if Nigeria is to meet its debt servicing obligations.
Also joining the advisory team is Nuhu Ribadu, the former head of Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency. He’s tasked with finding a way to end the violence perpetrated by Islamist extremists, secessionists and criminals across vast swathes of the country. Ribadu holds two law degrees and also served as assistant commissioner of police.
Tinubu’s advisers are expected to serve as informal cabinet members until the president gets parliament approval for his government lineup, a process that could take weeks or even months. The president is expected to submit his list to the newly inaugurated lawmakers in the coming weeks for screening.
Credit: Yahoo News