Godwin Emefiele, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, on Wednesday approved the appointments of Aliyu Abdulhameed as the Managing Director and Babjide Arowosafe as the Executive Director for NIRSAL.
This was contained in a statement signed by Ibrahim Mu’azu, the Director of Corporate Communications Department of the CBN, and published on the apex bank’s Website.
The statement said Abdulhameed holds a B.Sc. Degree in Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and a Masters Degree in Public Administration, with specialisation in public policy.
It added: “He also holds an executive masters certificate in project management from the Project Management College (UK).
“He has over 22 years experience in corporate agribusiness and in the field of agricultural finance and risk management.
“Mr. Abdulhameed is currently an executive team member of NIRSAL Plc.”
According to the statement, Arowosafe has a first degree in agriculture and a master degree in agricultural policy and administration.
It said Arowosafe had wide-ranging experience in agriculture and micro-enterprises having worked in these fields for both the World Bank and the United Nations.
“Most recently, Mr Arowosafe was the commissioner for agriculture and natural resources in Ekiti State.”
The statement explained that NIRSAL was an initiative of the CBN, the Bankers Committee and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development.
It added that in addition to many other functions, the company essentially administers a Risk Sharing Fund.
It noted that the fund was designed to identify, redefine, measure, re-price and evolve strategies to de-risk and catalyse lending to the Nigerian agriculture value chain.
The statement said NIRSAL was subsequently incorporated as a Public Limited Liability Company and licensed as a Non-Bank Financial Institution.
It said NIRSAL had the primary mandate of facilitating the flow of credit to agribusiness value chain players and collaborating with stakeholders to fix broken agricultural value chains in Nigeria.
It added: “From inception in 2012 to date, 454 projects valued ₦61.161 billion have been guaranteed by NIRSAL.”
