by Adeola Soetan

The most stupid explanation of the Naira crisis is that “Emefiele is a PDP man, he’s using the Naira crisis to punish APC government  because he collected APC form with N100m to become president and since he lost the huge sum, he wants to use the Naira redesigning to make APC lose the election so that PDP will return to power… “

Gosh! What a balderdash, an unintelligent story told by unintelligent people for the marines.

When you consider that this kind of childish thought about a major national crisis comes from educated people and is consciously spread by them especially APC chieftains/supporters including some governors, then you know that we have a lot of barren minds arrogantly prowling the land with propaganda to serve the purpose of regime protectionism for power negotiation.

First, Emefiele was inherited by President Buhari from ex-president Goodluck Jonathan’s government. After his first tenure, he was REAPPOINTED in 2019 by Buhari and the appointment was approved by the Senate for a second term of 5 years. This made it the first time that anyone will serve for a second term since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999. No reasonable president will reappoint a CBN governor he considers a failure. Emefiele must have been reappointed on merit by Buhari the acclaimed man of integrity.

Since the appointment is statutory and vital functions specified by legislation, it’s taken for granted that due diligence was taken and proper security scrutiny conducted by the appointer, ie the president, and the approving legislative body, ie the Senate. And since his reappointment, Emefiele has become a multipurpose (gbogbonse in the Yoruba language), “omnipresent & omnipresent” most visible celebrity CBN Governor in the history of CBN Governors that I know. Sanusi and Soludo despite their unusual visibility too, can’t match Emefiele in his celebrity status.

Emefiele has been managing the monetary policies of the nation and unleashing commercial Shylock commercial banks on the citizens and corporate bodies to collect all kinds of levies and taxes on regular basis in line with the rabid revenue generation drive of the Buhari government. Emefele and Buhari have been doing kurukere kurukere in the regime’s agricultural and food security programs, unstoppable loans borrow borrow to the acclaim and approval of the national assembly, many gullible citizens and supporters/defenders of the this borrow borrow regime.

Mr President has always been well-pleased with Emefele and Emefele is also well-pleased with his boss. Many of those who are condemning Emefele now but excusing Buhari were enthusiastic defenders of Emefiele’s many odd monetary policy styles and his extracurricular activities including Buhari’s much-flaunted rice pyramid/anchor borrowers project.

Then comes the embarrassing, untimely and improperly planned Naira redesigning project which Buhari himself fully endorsed and publicly made known that a core aim of the redesigning is to stop vote buying and to prevent mobilizing thugs by rogue politicians who he knew or felt had hoarded huge war chest for elections. So, why blame Emefiele alone and find excuses for Buhari that he’s misadvised, deceived, or not properly tutored by Emefiele, thereby projecting him as a pampered toddler, a daft or a president that’s under the control of Emefele, his worker who he can order to resign or recommend to be removed by the Senate?

This is typical of the same excuses and blame games for regime protectionism that led the country into this sorry state of economic collapse of no money, no petrol, flying inflation, insecurity, mass poverty, increasing unemployment and many inhuman conditions.

Emefiele is a full member of APC to the extent of his strange ambition to become the party’s presidential candidate and possibly the country’s president. In an actual fight, I didn’t know that a sitting CBN governor can ever dream of having a political ambition and boldly pursue the ambition under the nose of a sitting president, his appointer. Before 1999, I grew up to know CBN Governors as behind-the-screen least visible, non-openly partisan, almost unheard individuals. But it’s like the trend has changed for the WORST.

Adeola Soetan