By Ismail Auwal
The former Deputy Governor of Nigerian Central Bank, who is also an academic and a politician, Dr. Kingsley Moghalu, has declared interest to run for the office of Nigerian president in 2023.
In a statement signed by Moghalu on Tuesday morning, he said that his campaign philosophy in the 2019 presidential election has inspired millions of Nigerians, challenged the country’s traditional political establishment with a new vision to create prosperity for 200 million people, proposed ways to build a nation out of the country’s disparate groups, and restore the standing of Africa’s most populous country.
“Moghalu’s bold, issues-focused candidacy, as opposed to the tired, old ethno-religious and vote-buying politics that has failed to move the country forward, was a breath of fresh air credited with altering Nigeria’s political narrative in the direction of reform.”
“With the needless poverty and injustice that has kept millions of Nigerians, young and old, from achieving their full potential, and the deeply entrenched vested interests that stand in the way of real change, we must act boldly and differently to create a better future for our people,” Moghalu said.
Born in 1963 in Lagos to Isaac Moghalu, a Nigerian Foreign Service Officer, and Vidah Moghalu, a schoolteacher, Kingsley Moghalu developed a keen distaste for human suffering at a young age. His middle class family background only sharpened his discomfort with the poverty that is the lot of many Nigerians thanks to corruption and incompetent governance, and ultimately has led him to his quest for a better life for his countrymen and women.
His career to date marks him out as an agent of transformative change. As Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from 2009 to 2014, appointed by President Umaru Yar’Adua, he led the implementation of extensive reforms in the wake of the global financial crisis that stabilized the financial system and saved the livelihoods of millions of Nigerians. No bank failed, and no depositor lost a kobo. He also led payment system reforms, including the development and introduction of the innovative unique identifier Bank Verification Number (BVN), that enabled the development of the country’s large financial technology (FinTech) sector today.
Moghalu was a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the CBN that successfully tamed inflation in Nigeria by 2014, bringing it down to a single digit at 8%. He also served as Chairman of the Boards of Directors of the Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM) and Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC), and a member of the Boards of Directors of the CBN, Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based global Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI). He was a member of the President of Nigeria’s Economic Management Team, representing the CBN.
Following his five-year tenure at the CBN, Moghalu was appointed Professor of Practice in International Business and Public Policy at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, one of the world’s top professional graduate schools of international affairs, where he taught and mentored graduate students from countries including Brazil, Canada, France, Ghana, India, Japan, Nigeria, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and United States of America.
He previously worked for the United Nations for 17 years in conflict resolution and international peace and security operations, nation-building and development finance roles in New York, Cambodia, Croatia, Rwanda/Tanzania, and in Switzerland, rising to the global organization’s highest career bracket of Director. In 2006 Moghalu, appointed by then Secretary-General Kofi Annan, served on a UN General Assembly-mandated blue-ribbon panel that overhauled the organization’s transparency, accountability, and administrative dispute resolution framework as part of UN management reform.
Kingsley Moghalu is now the President of the Institute for Governance and Economic Transformation (IGET), a public policy think tank focused on inclusive growth, and the CEO of Sogato Strategies, a global investment advisory firm. He is presently serving as Special Envoy of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on Post-Covid Development Finance for Africa, developing a concrete policy roadmap out of the fiscal distress into which the Covid19 pandemic plunged the countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
He obtained his doctorate of philosophy in international relations at the London School of Economics, a master’s from Tufts University, and the LL.B. degree from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He also holds a professional certification in risk management from the Institute of Risk Management in London, UK, and received executive education in leadership, corporate governance, and macroeconomic and financial management at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Business School, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Institute. He is the author of several books including the critically acclaimed Emerging Africa: How the Global Economy’s ‘Last Frontier’ Can Prosper and Matter.
In 2005 Moghalu founded the Isaac Moghalu Foundation, a memorial philanthropy for his deceased father that supports access to education for underprivileged youth in rural communities in Nigeria. He is married to Maryanne Moghalu, the Executive Director of IMOF, and they have four children.
Moghalu holds the Nigerian national honor of the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON), the traditional title of Ifekaego of Nnewi Kingdom, and the Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa) conferred on him by Anambra State University. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers (FCIB) of Nigeria. He enjoys walking, cycling, and listening to music.
