This came at a public hearing on a Bill seeking to amend the CBN Act of 2007, organised by the House's joint committee on Banking and Currency and Justice.
The Bill seeks to allow for the appointment of a person, other than the governor, as Chairman of the bank's board and exclude the deputy governors of the bank from being members of the board.
The Bill, if passed into law, would divest the board of power to consider and approve the annual budget of CBN.
The National Assembly, it would be recalled, had repeatedly questioned the authority of CBN and other government corporations to consider and approve their budgets in contravention of the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
The CBN governor, who was represented by the Deputy Governor, Operations, Mr. Tunde Lemo, warned that removing its financial autonomy would prevent the bank from discharging its mandate effectively, as he faulted the allegation of lack of transparency in the bank's budgeting system.
Sanusi said: "CBN has taken steps to improve transparency of its monetary policy by publishing the personal statements of the MPC members and voting patterns in arriving at MPC decisions. To our knowledge, no other country in the African continent does this currently.
"The independence had helped it in achieving results. The experience of CBN as a truly independent apex bank reflected in the relatively stable financial system and macro-economic environment in the last few years.
"Since the Act was amended in 2007 to grant CBN more autonomy, the bank has been able to proactively use policy instruments in order to rein in inflation."
In their contributions, former governors of CBN, Sanusi and Ciroma, said removing the governor of CBN as Chairman of the board and excluding deputy governors from the board, would be tantamount to creating a complexities and non-conforming with international best practices.
Ciroma said: "There is nothing to gain from excluding them. In deep conscience and honesty, I cannot find the rationale behind this plan. I urge you to leave this matter so that you don't do anything outrageous and nonconforming."
However, Mr. Henry Boyo, an economist, argued that it was inappropriate to give CBN too much freedom, adding that the apex bank required a little bit of control and supervision.
Other stakeholders, who participated and said the proposed amendment be shelved, include Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC; Financial Correspondents Association of Nigeria, FICAN; Institute of Chattered Accountants of Nigeria, ICAN; Association of Accountants of Nigeria, AAN, and bank executives.
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