By BASHIR ADEFAKA
What has been interpreted as end of discussion with Mr. Godwin Emefiele occurred on Friday as new President of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, suspended him as the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has suspended the Central Bank Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, CFR, from office with immediate effect,” the Director of Information, Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Willie Bassey, reportedly said in a Friday statement.
“This is a sequel to the ongoing investigation of his office and the planned reforms in the financial sector of the economy.
“Mr Emefiele has been directed to immediately hand over the affairs of his office to the Deputy Governor (Operations Directorate) [Folashodun Adebisi Shonubi], who will act as the Central Bank Governor pending the conclusion of the investigation and the reforms.”
The DEFENDER reports that Emefiele was believed to have been useful to the APC government under former President Muhammadu Buhari as he helped identify areas needed to prosecute the administration’s anti-corruption project against previous administration of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
He was, however, not to be too lucky as he ran foul and got perpetually accused by elements, who saw him as being behind the moves in alerted incessant protests, sometimes violent, plotting the removal of Alhaji Yusuf Magaji Bichi as Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS).
Emefiele also ran foul of favour under the same APC administration of Buhari when accusing fingers pointed at him as person behind wrong economic advice leading the Federal Government to approving the New Naira Redesign (Naira Swap) Policy that has continued to haunt the country’s economic and financial life until the present.
The naira policy, particularly, pitched the CBN governor against Nigerians, who persistently called on former President Buhari to sack him but wondered that the then President appeared to be vehemently behind him until the end of his administration on May 29, 2023 and still bequeathing him to the new administration.
The argument of the Buhari’s government was that the policy would help tackle vote-buying, insecurity and fight inflation among others, although in reality it turned out to be the flogging that the economy received then and until now.
Some state governors including Mallam Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna), Bello Mohammed Matawalle (Zamfara) and Yahaya Bello (Kogi) joined by Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu (Lagos) even took the matter to court with Tinubu faulting the implementation of the policy and asking the Emefiele-led CBN to allow both old and new notes to co-exist.
Tinubu said, he was “only concerned about its disruptive implementation and the hardship it has brought on the generality of our people who currently can’t access their hard-earned money to meet obligations and the attendant consequences on the informal sector, where the majority operate”.
The major challenge posed by the Emefiele’s misadvised policy was the impression among the Tinubu Presidential Campaign Council of the ruling class that it was targeted at Tinubu and to punish the then APC presidential candidate by depriving of being able to dispense money for election as, according to media sources, he was believed to have spend over a trillion naira and needed to be curbed.
Buhari, not sacking him and still continuing to defending the policy saying he was fully briefed and convinced by the CBN’s explanations, was therefore assumed to be against emergence of Tinubu as his successor leading to reason he voted and displayed his voting ballot during the presidential election at his Daura polling unit on Saturday February 25.
His sack, on Friday, was coming 11 days after President Tinubu assumed office and months after the CBN’s heavily-criticised naira swap.
The DEFENDER recalls that during his inauguration, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, among three major key actions to be taken, promised to review the naira swap policy. The other two were fuel subsidy removal and unified foreign exchange rate. All the three planned actions have been implemented except one, the unified foreign exchange rate.
Tinubu had also maintained that naira swap policy “was too harshly applied by the CBN given the number of unbanked Nigerians”, vowing that, “The policy shall be reviewed. In the meantime, my administration will treat both currencies as legal tender”.
