The women’s presence, operation, and compensation have set tongues wagging across the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Senior staff members across the CBN’s 29 departments are fuming and grumbling over how the women, arbitrarily brought in by Governor Olayemi Cardoso as consultants, have amassed enormous powers enabling them to sometimes issue directives to departmental directors.
There is also widespread anger across the board over what some insiders describe as the “unbelievably high and obscene” compensation the consultants earn monthly.
Mr Cardoso assumed duties as CBN governor on 22 September 2023. Some insiders said the women arrived with him that day at the bank. But some sources said the women only joined days later and have remained at the regulatory institution ever since, sparking suspicion and debate about their relationship with the governor, value to the institution, and huge monthly pay.
The women at the centre of this raging controversy are Nkiru Balonwu, founder of The Africa Soft Power Group, and Daphne Dafinome, a chartered accountant and chief operating officer of Crowe Dafinone, a Nigerian accounting firm.
There is a third “technical consultant” called Shola Phillips who joined Mr Cardoso’s kitchen cabinet from Citibank. But our sources said Shola’s presence and activities have not been as disruptive and controversial as those of her two colleagues just as the terms of her engagement are not immediately clear.
The consultants are now mockingly called “Cardoso women” across the bank. One source giggled when our reporter requested a further explanation of the term. “You should be able to decode what that means yourself,” the official said.
Directors at the CBN said Mr Cardoso arbitrarily hired the women as consultants without following laid down rules, with no terms of reference, deliverables or timelines for the delivery of their consultancies.
For instance, they queried the hiring of Ms Balonwu as a corporate communication consultant when the CBN has an elaborate, efficient, and well-staffed corporate communication department led by a director and tasked with ensuring effective, timely and qualitative internal and external communication engagement and feedback.
The consultants are now mockingly called “Cardoso women” across the bank.
On the other hand, insiders said Ms Dafinone’s consultancy role is not clearly defined; she merely takes on any responsibility assigned to her by Mr Cardoso. Only recently, the governor tasked her with designing and implementing a controversial early exit programme to pay off at least 1,000 staff members into voluntary retirements. Mr Cardoso tapped her for this role while bypassing the bank’s human resources department, which is statutorily charged with developing and administering human capital management policies, functions and processes.
Ms Balonwu and Dafinone as Fifth and Sixth CBN Deputy Governors
The CBN has four deputy governors: Emem Usoro (Corporate Services Directorate), Muhammad Dattijo (Economic Policy Directorate), Philip Ikeazor (Financial System Stability Directorate), and Bala Bello (Operations Directorate). However, staff members now derisively refer to Ms Balonwu and Dafinone as the fifth and sixth deputy governors of the bank, saying the two have amassed so much power to be so called.
Directors said the consultants now write memos on CBN letterheads, issuing directives even when they are unknown to the bank’s structure and organogram.
“They said they are consultants, but they have permanent offices in the bank, and their consultancies have no end dates,” one director said. “I am tempted to say they are 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 the so-called consultants. They even bypass deputy governors to give direct instructions to directors.”
Another bank insider corroborated the director’s claim, saying he once overheard one of the women boasting that “if she draws a line at the bank, even the governor dare not cross it”.
“I can tell you the women are the real people running the CBN. Cardoso has become a mere figurehead,” a third director said.
Consultant earning salary of 15 directors
Staff members also accuse Mr Cardoso of paying the women obscene salaries. For instance, Ms Balonwu, they said, pockets N50 million naira monthly, earning more than the governor and the deputy governors. Her salary also dwarfs the combined pay of 15 directors, who earn below N3 million monthly.
On her part, Ms Dafinone earns N35 million monthly, said to be higher than the combined salaries of 10 directors.
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“Why do you abuse your office to engage family and friends and make them millionaires this way? a staff member lamented. “It is disturbing because even Emefiele, with all his weaknesses, did not act with this impunity.
“These women are doing nothing. They are 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 CBN. There is no need to domicile consultants in the bank.”
What the law says about hiring consultants
According to Nigeria’s Public Procurement Act 2007, government agencies are required to conduct transparent and competitive processes when hiring consultants.
The Act mandates that consultancy opportunities be publicly advertised—typically in at least two national newspapers and the official procurement journal—with clear submission guidelines, defined terms of reference, and detailed evaluation criteria.
Proposals must be assessed separately on technical merit and cost, ensuring that only qualified candidates are engaged and that the process remains fair and accountable.
In contrast, the apparent arbitrary appointment of the so-called “consultants” at the CBN—hired without defined deliverables or competitive process, and earning salaries that dwarf those of senior executives—raises serious questions.
Their hiring appears to violate the strict procedures outlined in the Act, which are designed to safeguard public funds and ensure value for money.
Consultant Dafinone for fraud trial
Meanwhile, one of the consultants, Ms Dafinone, is set to be arraigned on 4 March before Justice Ibrahim Kala of a Federal High Court in Lagos over an alleged N100 million fraud. Her company, CEDDI Corporation Limited, is also a defendant in the case.
She is accused of conspiring to defraud developer Lukman Adeleke in a 2019 property transaction.
According to court filings, Mr Adeleke paid N100 million for a property at 93 Broad Street, Lagos Island, but Ms Dafinone allegedly sold it to another buyer.
Efforts to resolve the dispute amicably failed, leading Mr Adeleke to seek legal redress.
According to the New Telegraph, Ms Dafinone was absent at the last court hearing, with her lawyer, Dapo Akinosun, informing the court that she was receiving medical treatment in London.
Ms Dafinone’s ongoing legal troubles add to the controversy surrounding her role at the CBN, where senior officials have raised concerns about her influence and high remuneration, questioning the necessity of her consultancy.
Meanwhile, Mr Cardoso, in September 2024, appointed Ms Dafinone to the board of the Nigerian Incentive-based Risk Sharing System of Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), a non-bank financial institution owned by the CBN and charged with redefining measuring, re-pricing and sharing agribusiness-related credit risks in Nigeria.
Despite her ongoing trial, Ms Dafinone is combining her role on NIRSAL board with her controversial consultancy at the CBN.
Efforts to reach the consultants were unsuccessful. Ms Dafinone did not respond to telephone and WhatsApp calls. Neither did she reply to a text message.
Attempts to contact Ms Balonwu were also unfruitful; her direct telephone line did not connect while she did not answer or reply to a WhatsApp call. An iMessage sent to her was delivered but went unanswered.
Similarly, CBN spokesperson Hakama Ali’s known telephone line was unreachable, and she did not respond to a text message and an email sent to her.
