Nkiru Balonwu, Daphne Dafinone, and Shola Phillips are reportedly creating a stir at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under Governor Olayemi Cardoso.
Nkiru Balonwu is the founder of The Africa Soft Power Group, Daphne Dafinone is the CCO of Crowe LLP and a board member of The Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL Plc.), and Shola Phillips is a former banker at Citibank.
Premium Times reports that senior staff across the CBN’s 29 departments are expressing frustration over how these women, who were brought in by Governor Cardoso as consultants, have gained significant power, allowing them to occasionally issue directives to departmental directors.
While Balonwu and Dafinone have been more disruptive and controversial, Shola’s involvement has not drawn as much attention, and the specifics of her engagement are not as clear.
The consultants are now mockingly referred to as “Cardoso women” within the bank. One source chuckled when asked for an explanation of the term, responding that it should be obvious.
Directors at the CBN have criticized Mr. Cardoso for hiring the women as consultants without following standard procedures, lacking clear terms of reference, deliverables, or timelines for their work.
For example, they questioned the hiring of Nkiru Balonwu as a corporate communication consultant when the CBN already has an established, efficient, and well-staffed corporate communications department with a director responsible for internal and external communication.
As for Dafinone, her consultancy role is also unclear; she takes on any task assigned by Cardoso. Recently, the governor tasked her with designing and implementing a controversial early exit program to offer voluntary retirements to at least 1,000 staff members, bypassing the human resources department, which is supposed to handle such matters.
Balonwu and Dafinone are now even referred to as the “fifth and sixth deputy governors” by staff, because they have gained so much power within the bank.
Directors say the consultants now write memos on CBN letterheads, issuing directives that are often unfamiliar to the bank’s structure.
“They claim to be consultants, but they have permanent offices in the bank, and their consultancies have no end dates,” one director remarked. “I’d say they’re even more influential than the deputy governors. Their offices are on the eleventh floor, just like the governor’s. The deputy governors are on the tenth floor, below them. They bypass the deputy governors to give direct instructions to directors.”
Another insider confirmed this, recalling how one of the women once boasted that “if she draws a line at the bank, even the governor dare not cross it.”
A third director stated, “I can tell you the women are the real people running the CBN. Cardoso has become a mere figurehead.”
Staff members also allege that Cardoso is paying the consultants exorbitant salaries. For example, Balonwu reportedly earns N50 million monthly, which is more than the governor and deputy governors combined. Her salary is also greater than the total pay of 15 directors, who earn less than N3 million a month.
Dafinone reportedly makes N35 million monthly, more than the combined salaries of 10 directors.
A staff member lamented, “Why do you misuse your position to engage family and friends and make them millionaires like this? It’s disturbing because even Emefiele, despite his flaws, didn’t act with such impunity.”
“They’re doing nothing. They’re not adding any value to the bank. The governor is just enriching them because they are his friends. There are 29 experienced directors, 170 deputy directors, and over 400 PhD holders in the CBN. There’s no need to have consultants like this in the bank.”
