Godwin Emefiele assumes office today as the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Governor after the expiration of the tenure of Lamido Sanusi on May 31. Mr. Emefiele was still on duty at Zenith as at last Friday.

A visit to Zenith last Friday showed that some of his personal staff were being mobilised on Friday to leave for Abuja in preparation for his assumption of office today.

Mr. Emefiele, during his confirmation hearing at the Senate said CBN, under him shall vigorously pursue a development banking model, DBM, in addition to working hard to achieve the core mandate of monetary and price stability.

Emefiele had told the senators that DBM is a model that has been tried and tested in different jurisdictions in the world. He had told the senators that “in fact, in some of the frontiers and emerging markets in the world, we have seen development banking used as a tool for achieving economic growth, development and industrialisation.”

Until last Friday, Emefiele was the Group Managing Director, Zenith Bank Plc, a position he has held since August 2010. He was Deputy Managing Director of the bank, having been appointed into that position in 2001.

Emefiele had been on the bank’s management team since inception and had held various management positions in the bank, including serving as the bank’s Executive Director in charge of Corporate Banking, Treasury, Financial Control and Strategic Planning.

Before his appointment as Group Managing Director, Emefiele was directly responsible for all the group’s local subsidiaries, treasury and correspondent banking and multilateral, conglomerates and private banking.