CHAPTER ONE
1.0Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â INTRODUCTION
1.1Â Â Â Â Â BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
In Nigeria, commercial and merchant banking date back to 1894 when the Bank of British West Africa (BBWA) was established and 1960 when Philip Hill (Nigeria) limited and Nigeria acceptances limited were set up.  Since thus, the general profile of the Nigeria banking industry has transformed in various dimensions, and particularly, the growth in terms of number has been quite phenomenal.  Thus, the number of  commercial and merchant banks in the country comes to 120 (with 2076 branches) as at the end of december, 1994 according to reports released by the central Bank of Nigeria.  This was unexpected because various policies put in place so as to achieve a realistic exchange rate for naira disrupted price levels.  Another reason for the increase in number of banks is the widening of the sphere which banks could operate.  The general deregulation permits banks to do lot more business and particularly the distribution between merchant and commercial banking.          Therefore, the upsurge in number of bank itself is a positive development because more people are now aware of banking services than before .  but the rapid expansion that has been envisaged above in the number of banks and their branches would no doubt require greater bank manpower throughout the system.  Bank management quite unlike the management of other business, is a specialized profession because its stock in trade (i.e. money) s so easy to defalcate.  Therefore, it calls for people of extremely high calibre and good training.  It is therefore, against this background that he researcher wishes to x-ray the manpower implications of this spiral growth of banks in Nigeria with a view to identify the problems and offer solutions.
