By Andy Ezeani
The full story of how Godwin Emefiele almost abandoned his prime position as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria to join the giddy race for President of Nigeria via the overloaded rough vehicle of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is yet to be told.
Was he nudged on into a caper and conned along the way? Or was the adventure a true expression of his ambition and spirit of adventure? Whichever one it was, does not really matter. The man is an adult and therefore, takes responsibility for his decisions and actions. In this case, it was his choice to try the APC gamble. For good measures, he gathered the whooping N100miliion purchase of form fee that he threw into the unforgiving APC machine that never returned any money that entered its vaults.
Leaving the apex of a stable, structured job as a banker to dabble into the enterprise where people “go after power, grab it and run with it”, as Bola Tinubu recently described the way they roll in politics, Emefiele must have either been hypnotized or he had a dark side of him that yearned to come to light. Whatever it was, he lost his deposit right away and quickly beat a retreat. With his fingers burnt.
Since
it is not yet established how Emefiele got himself into that gamble at APC in
the first place, it remains uncertain too, what his reaction was to the
misadventure. Is he still smarting from his loss of a hefty N100million? Or did
he shrug his shoulders and dismiss the whole thing as one of those things?
There are unconfirmed reports that Emefiele is embittered,
especially as he was goaded onto the gamble and subsequently fleeced. N100
million will always be a big amount to fritter away, no matter on which altar.
Forget all that shallow narrative about how some rice farmers and fishermen
donated the money to him. There was no rich, generous rice farmers anywhere.
The money was Emefiele’s. the loss was his,
as well.
The APC presidential primary came across eventually, as an
organized scheme, designed and targeted at a group of individuals within the
party, whose inordinate ambition or mere dreams, together with their poor
understanding of their principal, worked together to expose them to the
exploitative manipulation of their party leaders. Their lot was worse than that
of ponzi scheme losers.
Is
Emefiele so embittered over his experience at the APC presidential primaries to
the point of deploying institutional tools to get even with the politicians he
unsuccessfully tried to join from the top?
Ahmadu Fintri, Peoples Democratic governor of Adamawa, obviously
believes that the Central Bank governor is still embittered and is out to use
his office to hurt the political class for the rough deal meted out to him at
the APC.
To Governor Fintri, the line between personal vendetta and
official CBN policy on the current limits of cash withdrawal from banks few
months to the general elections, is, at best tenuous. As far as he is
concerned, Emefiele is out to draw blood from politicians.
In a scathing comment late last week, the Adamawa state governor
noted that the new CBN policy on cash withdrawal will suffocate politicians and
political activities in the campaign period leading to the elections. He
vehemently protested the policy limiting cash withdrawal from banks at this
point in the political timetable.
The
policy, for records, limits individual and company withdrawals to N100,000 and
N500,000 respectively, per week. It also limits point of sale machine
withdrawal to N20,000 daily for individuals. Banks were directed by the policy,
to load only N200 and lower denominations into their ATMs and restrict
withdrawal to N20,000 per day. The policy will take effect January 9 2023,
barely a month to the beginning of the 2023 elections.
Some
other interests and voices from the political class have protested the new cash
withdrawal policy. The political parties in a common front response, protested
that “the new cash withdrawal limits will choke the political process” Another
section of the same political parties , wanting to appear more noble and
compassionate, contended that the policy will impact negatively on “the poor
and the rural dwellers”. Good people.
Governor Fintiri is the only one so far, who has personalized his
reading of the policy. He believed, obviously, that the policy was designed to
hurt politicians. To Fintiri, the voice is that of the CBN, but the hand and
spirit belong to Godwin Emefiele.
The
governor holds, interestingly, that what informed the CBN policy on cash
withdrawal is what the CBN governor experienced at the APC presidential
primaries. As it seems, what Fintiri would have liked to say, but which he
could not find a way to say, is that Emefiele should not extend a penance meant
for APC to the PDP and others.
Governor Fintiri’s reading of the root of the new CBN cash
withdrawal policy is neither here nor there. His views, however, exposed what
is wrong with politicians everywhere. For the politician, the world begins and
ends with him. When he has his way, he waxes lyrical about patriotism and need
for sacrifices. If he does not have his way, he disturbs the neighbourhood to
no end.
In
truth, the CBN policy limiting cash withdrawal from banks will inconvenience
businesses and individual transactions. The reality, however, is that for the
moment the policy will choke the shenanigans of the politicians more than the
economic survival of the general populace. There may be no reason for the CBN
to enter any denial that the policy aims at curtailing the excessive deployment
of cash by politicians to undermine the electoral process.
Nigerians can live with this constricting cash policy for the next
three months. CBN should loosen the rope sometime in April 2023, after the
elections are over. It is not too difficult to see that the policy of the CBN
to redesign the naira and limit cash withdrawal from banks have rendered an
unquantifiable huge sum of hidden money useless to the political machinations
of crooked politicians.
The CBN policy has not in any way limited the donation individuals
can make to political parties and candidates. Nor does the policy in any way
prevent parties from paying their agents, as some of the politicians are
claiming. There is no political agent or contractor who does not have bank
account. All payments should be made through bank accounts. That’s the idea.
For those who are planning to buy votes during elections, let them do so
through bank accounts too.
Whatever may be the motive for the CBN policy, it should be retained
for the next three months. The benefits have more positive prospects than
otherwise.
*Ezeani is a commentator on public issues
No comments:
Post a Comment