Kingsley Moghalu

Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu OON (born 7 May 1963) is a Nigerian political economist and the President of the African School of Governance (ASG), a pan-African graduate school focused on public policy and governance based in Kigali, Rwanda. He served as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, appointed by President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, from 2009 to 2014. He subsequently taught at Tufts University as Professor of Practice in International Business and Public Policy at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy from 2015 to 2017. He was the presidential candidate of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) in the country's general election in February 2019.

Moghalu is the founder of Sogato Strategies LLC, a global investment advisory firm, and the president of the Institute for Governance and Economic Transformation (IGET), a public policy think tank. He is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Council on Emerging Market Enterprises at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and has served as the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Special Envoy on Post-Covid Development Finance for Africa.

He was the Oxford Martin Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford for the Michaelmas term in 2021

Moghalu is the chairman of the board of directors of the Africa Private Sector Summit (APSS) and is a member of the Advisory Council of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), a network of global asset management firms, sovereign wealth and pension funds.

Early life and education Moghalu was born in Lagos in 1963 to Isaac Moghalu, a Nigerian foreign service officer and Vidah Moghalu, a school teacher. Moghalu spent his early childhood in Switzerland and Washington, DC, where his father was posted. Isaac Moghalu transferred his service back to Nigeria's Eastern Region as the country was rocked by a political and humanitarian crisis, and the family returned to Nigeria in April 1967. The Eastern Region announced its secession from Nigeria the following month of May, and Moghalu and his family lived in his hometown of Nnewi, as well as Umuahia, the capital of the short-lived Republic of Biafra, during the civil war that lasted for two and a half years. In the 1970s Kingsley received his secondary school education at Eziama High School, Aba, Government College Umuahia, and Federal Government College Enugu. He earned a degree in law from the University of Nigeria in 1986, and the Barrister at Law from the Nigerian Law School, Lagos.

Moghalu obtained a Master of Arts degree in 1992, at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he was the Joan Gillespie Fellow and a Research Assistant in the International Political Economy Program. He earned the International Certificate in Risk Management from the Institute of Risk Management (IRM) in London. Moghalu later obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2005 with a thesis entitled "Justice as policy and strategy: A study of the tension between political and juridical responses to violations of international humanitarian law". He received advanced executive education in macroeconomics and financial sector management, corporate governance, and global strategic leadership at the International Monetary Fund Institute, Columbia Business School, Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Business School, and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2002, Moghalu was appointed to the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, as head of global partnerships and resource mobilization at The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), a public-private international development finance organization and social investment fund with $20 billion in assets and investments in 140 developing and middle-income countries. He was a member of the Global Fund's senior management group that set corporate strategy, a member of the risk management committee, and was promoted to the rank of director in 2006.

The Governing Board of The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva, Switzerland appointed Kingsley Moghalu, in 2017, as a member of its high level Independent Expert Group on Financing for Development. The Expert Group reviewed and made recommendations on how to better achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and effective domestic resource mobilization for development in developing countries.

Moghalu resigned from the United Nations in December 2008. He then founded Sogato Strategies S.A., a global strategy and risk consultancy, in Geneva.

Umaru Yar'Adua, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (2007–2010), appointed Moghalu deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria in November 2009. Moghalu was the deputy governor for Financial System Stability and supervised the execution of reforms in Nigeria's banking sector after the 2008 financial crisis. He also served as deputy governor for Operations, with supervisory responsibility for currency and branch operations, payment systems, and the management of Nigeria's foreign reserves of $37 billion. He led the rollout of payment systems reforms, including the development and introduction of the unique identifier Bank Verification Number (BVN), that enabled the growth of a thriving Fintech industry.

Moghalu was a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), the Committee of Governors (CoG), and the Board of Directors of the CBN, and also served as a member and representative of the CBN in the Economic Management Team of president Goodluck Jonathan. He served as the Chairman of the Boards of Directors of the Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM) and the Financial Institutions Training Centre, and as a member of the boards of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Kuala Lumpur-based Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI). He also represented the CBN as a member of the Board Executive Committee of the International Islamic Liquidity Management Corporation, headquartered in Kuala Lumpur.

In 2014, Kingsley Moghalu delivered the Thomas Hodgkin Memorial Lecture at the University of Oxford.

On 8 May 2023, Moghalu delivered the 30th Anniversary Founders' Day Lecture of the African Export-Import Bank Afreximbank at the Bank's Headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.

On 16 October 2024, the newly established African School of Governance (ASG) University, Kigali, Rwanda, appointed him as the inaugural President (Vice-Chancellor) of the institution.

Controversies Moghalu's tenure at the CBN included the introduction of non-interest (Islamic) banking. This policy generated strong political controversy. Moghalu defended the decision to introduce Islamic banking explaining that this was one of several measures to expand financial inclusion and not, as many Christians in a country with strong sectarian tensions erroneously believed, an Islamization agenda.

In early 2014, a disagreement of principle led to a temporary rupture in Moghalu's relationship with his former boss Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who had been suspended by President Goodluck Jonathan. Sanusi had alleged a $20 billion fraud at the country's publicly owned oil corporation. Moghalu disagreed with the manner in which his erstwhile superior handled the sensitive controversy. He expressed frustration that Sanusi had overstepped his role as the head of the central bank and crossed into political activism, but emphasized his support for Sanusi's leadership in monetary policy.

Political career In February 2018, Moghalu announced his intention to run for the office of the President of Nigeria. He later chose to run on the party platform of the Young Progressives Party.

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, then Emir of Kano, also endorsed Moghalu for President. Moghalu also received the strong endorsement of the Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi

Although Moghalu ultimately lost the election to Buhari, his candidacy, anchored on his manifesto "Build, Innovate and Grow" (BIG), had a strong appeal, and created a shift in Nigeria's political narrative towards the need for political and electoral reform. In October 2019, Moghalu resigned his membership of the YPP, announcing that he would focus in the immediate future on advocacy for electoral reform through the non-partisan citizens movement To Build a Nation (TBAN). In December 2022, Moghalu announced that he had withdrawn completely from partisan politics in Nigeria and had returned to a professional life. He served as a member of the editorial board of Central Banking Journal.

Honours Moghalu was decorated with the Nigerian National Honour of the Officer of the Order of the Nigerian (OON) by President Goodluck Jonathan. He was conferred with the degree of Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) Honoris Causa by Anambra State University, and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (FCIB) and a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of International Affairs. He is the recipient of the Rotary International Distinguished Service Award, and the "Against All Odds" Achievement Award of the African Women Economic Consortium. In 2019, following the general elections in Nigeria, the Federation of West African Freelance Journalists Association named Moghalu "Nigerian Political Icon of the Year" in what the association called "the Nigerian Political Achievers Hall of Fame".

On 28 December 2020, Moghalu was honoured with the conferment of the Nnewi traditional title of Ifekaego of Nnewi Kingdom by HRH Igwe Kenneth Onyeneke Orizu III.

Personal life Moghalu married Maryanne Onyinyechi Moghalu, Nee Ezike, in 1994. They have five children.