EDITORIAL: Unpacking the CBN’s purported expenditure efficiency

The Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) 2025 audited financial statements were recently published to rave reviews, with one report describing it as confirmation of Governor Olayemi Cardoso’s efforts at improving operational efficiency and repositioning the apex bank. Both the bank’s recent history and the general requirement to strengthen fiscal rectitude in the management of the domestic economy, recommend this direction of travel. And on the face of it, the numbers in the financial statement are impressive. Group personnel expenses fell from ₦608.5 billion in 2024 to ₦416.3 billion in 2025 — a reduction of 31.6 per cent. At the Bank level, the decline was 32.4 per cent, from ₦595.9 billion to ₦402.8 billion.

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Large, though, this reduction is, there are strong reasons to worry about the extent to which it betokens improved operational efficiency at the apex bank. One reason why this distinction matters is that the 2024 figure for personnel expenses at the bank was itself highly unusual.

Crucially, while the CBN’s personnel expenditure more than doubled in 2024, its wages and salaries did not. The narrative surrounding the personnel figures is improved by this qualification: the inclusion of early-exit payments in “other staff expenses” saw this expense line grow from ₦37.8 billion in 2023 to ₦306.6 billion in 2024. Put differently, the extraordinary increase in personnel expenditure in 2024 was overwhelmingly driven by an exceptional personnel cost associated with the Bank’s staff exit programme, rather than by a comparable increase in its ordinary wage bill. Indeed, group wages and salaries increased from ₦47.0 billion in 2023 to ₦55.6 billion in 2024 — an increase of about 18 per cent. At the Bank level, the increase was just over 4 per cent. By 2025, “Other staff expenses” were down to ₦87.1 billion from ₦306.6 billion.

If out-of-pattern costs were responsible for most of the fall in the apex bank’s total personnel expenditure, last year, is there a case for categorising much of the movement from 2024 to 2025 as the unwinding of an exceptional cost rather than, by itself, proof of a dramatic improvement in the efficiency with which the CBN conducts its business? PREMIUM TIMES believes this to be so. We are just as aware that the central bank Olayemi Cardoso became governor of in September 2023 was one in which staff positions had become gifts that Godwin Emefiele glad-handed politically connected persons. A decluttering of the CBN’s payroll was thus as necessary as it is useful.

Still, this need fails to fully address the curious counterpoint where “other staff expenses” collapsed in 2025, while wages and salaries increased slightly, from ₦55.6 billion to ₦56.2 billion; and other staff allowances increased even more significantly, from ₦191.9 billion to ₦226.1 billion.

Evidently, it is as difficult on the strength of these numbers to reject the CBN’s claim of greater operational efficiency as it is to accept the same claim simply because the headline personnel number has fallen. In search of general improvements in productivity across the Nigerian economy, we demand a more rigorous conversation around these issues.

First, if the objective of the Cardoso-led CBN’S restructuring was to make the apex bank leaner and more efficient, it would help to know what happened to the underlying, recurring cost of running the institution after the exceptional exit payments disappeared. It is hard to overlook the fact that the 2025 figure is still ₦416.3 billion — about 41 per cent higher than the ₦295.4 billion recorded in 2023.

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We do not imagine this indicative of the failure of the ongoing efforts at repositioning the CBN. Nor, thankfully, does it mean that personnel costs are excessive. We are aware that there may be perfectly legitimate explanations for this, including changes in levels of remuneration, allowances, staffing structures, responsibilities, and other operating requirements. Nonetheless, it does mean that the 31.6 per cent fall from the extraordinary 2024 figure is not, by itself, sufficient evidence of improved efficiency.

At this point, the invitation to the CBN, its shills and those with a genuine interest in the outcomes of the Nigerian economy, is to go beyond the headlines. In this case, the pertinent questions include: How many employees did the CBN have in 2023, 2024 and 2025? How much did the staff exit programme reduce the permanent workforce by? What is the personnel cost per employee? What exactly is contained in the ₦226.1 billion of other staff allowances? How much of the ₦87.1 billion of “other staff expenses” in 2025 remains attributable to restructuring or other exceptional items?

The questions may be legion and the challenge to transparency and good governance stern, but for PREMIUM TIMES, the most important poser is whether the cost of producing the CBN’s outputs have fallen. Stripped of all the guff, this is the essence of operational efficiency. An institution does not become more efficient merely because its expenditure falls. Efficiency means producing the same — or better — outcomes with fewer resources, or producing better outcomes with the resources deployed.

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We are convinced that this distinction is particularly important for a central bank. The CBN’s responsibilities are not measured simply by the size of its payroll. Monetary policy, financial-system supervision, currency management, payments infrastructure and other functions all must be performed effectively. A smaller institution that performs these functions badly would hardly represent an efficiency gain.

Is there a fair conclusion to be drawn from the figures? Yes. The Cardoso administration deserves credit for the substantial reduction in personnel expenditure, following the extraordinary 2024 staff-exit costs. Although, especially now, it cannot ignore the potential effects on its books of pending lawsuits instituted against it by senior staff who allege that their dismissals were wrongfully obtained. Is the distinction between a substantial unwinding of exceptional personnel expenditure and conclusive evidence of improved operational efficiency a pedantic one? No.

This distinction is the difference between a financial result and a performance assessment. And in our assessment, while the CBN may have begun the process of repositioning itself, the harder question is whether, after the restructuring costs have disappeared from the accounts, Nigerians will see a central bank that is not merely cheaper to run, but demonstrably more capable, more focused and more productive.

This is the test of efficiency that will ultimately matter. As is, the bill for restructuring has fallen. Now we need to see the dividend.