Banks contribute N300m to CIBN manpower devt fund

Nigerian banks have contributed over N300m to the Human Capital Retention Fund set up by the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria.

This was disclosed by the President/Chairman of the Council of the institute, Professor Pius Olanrewaju, on Thursday during the press conference ahead of the 17th Annual Banking & Finance Conference.

The fund was one of the recommendations of the last conference to address the trend of mass emigration of bank workers out of the country.

Olanrewaju said, “One of the critical things that happened in the last conference was the issue of ‘Japa’.  We conducted research, and the research was made open. It was critiqued during that conference, and we came up with a position, and the position is that you can’t prevent somebody from moving from one place to another. It is not going to work. We came up with a solution, which I believe is already yielding fruit.

“We came up with the Human Capital Development Fund. Banks had already contributed over N300m to that fund that will lead to the building of an academy to be cited in Abeokuta; we have acquired the place.

 “Let us not bother ourselves by saying people should not travel out of the country, what we can do is produce more talent, export talent. I was glad that during the week they were talking about money coming from the diaspora. Let people go out to wherever they want and bring the money into the system. And if they are going, there are replacements. By God’s grace, before the end of this tenure, I believe the building, if not nearing completion, the school would be functional.”

Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Consultative Committee for the conference, Oliver Alawuba, revealed some of the topical issues that would be discussed at this year’s event.

He said, “We are going to have very strong business sessions on unlocking possibilities through artificial intelligence. We are going to be dealing with diversifying our export base. Of course, FX is a major issue, and you can’t talk about export without FX. So, we are going to bring in experts, not just experts in the industry, even policymakers are going to be around to contribute to the conversation.

“We are going to also be discussing how banking will actually contribute to the economy. Call it capitalisation. Call it even artificial intelligence. Call it even financial information technology or, the digital economy. We have lined up very experienced scholars and practitioners who will be here to discuss fully, in detail how this country and indeed, Africa can move forward. So it is a very robust, very practical conference.”

On the subject of talent migration, popularly called ‘Japa’, Alawuba, who is also the Group Managing Director of United Bank for Africa, said, “In addition, we’re going to have a dinner. That dinner will be an interaction for the youth. Of course, you had the (CIBN) president talk about capacity, and we know that we have been plagued by the issue of ‘Japa’ syndrome. So, we would like to move from ‘Japa’ to ‘Japada’ and that dinner will be centre stage in that direction.

“We are going to showcase Nigerian youths who have done very well. You may not know that today we have the youngest senator, who is going to be there. We also going to have the youngest vice chancellor in Nigeria, and the youngest Commissioner for finance. So, they will be there to provide insights into more opportunities and show that it is still a smart choice to be in Nigeria. Yes, people will have reason to go, but they have reasons to come into the country.”

This year’s conference, themed ‘Accelerated Economic Growth and Development: The State of Play and the Way Forward’ will see the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria deliver a goodwill message.