To be sure, not many Nigerians care a hoot about Emefiele because of his perceived role in the country’s economic mess. But this absurd drama does not exalt Nigeria, either.
For those who may not know, Godwin Emefiele, a Nigerian banker, former chief executive officer and group managing director of Zenith Bank Plc., is the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Before his banking career, Emefiele taught Finance and Insurance at his alma mater, University of Nigeria Nsukka, and later University of Port Harcourt.
Though he was appointed CBN Governor in 2014 by former President Goodluck Jonathan and assumed office on June 3, 2014 for a five-year tenure, President Muhammadu Buhari reappointed him in 2019 for a second five-year term, which will, ceteris paribus (all other things being equal), elapse in 2024. Emefiele’s reappointment was the clearest indication that he found favour with President Buhari. It was a loud statement of approval.
So, when his nomination was sent to the Senate for confirmation, it was done with dispatch, thus making him the first CBN Governor to serve for a second term since the country’s return to democracy in 1999. Two of his predecessors – Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, Governor of Anambra State, and the deposed Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi – were not so privileged.
Emefiele’s chummy relationship with Buhari also made him powerful. He became, literally, the sole driver of the Federal Government’s rickety economic vehicle, straddling both the monetary and fiscal policy divides.
That had its downsides. First, because he had President Buhari’s back, or so he thought, he stepped, wittingly or unwittingly, on many powerful toes and made needless enemies for himself. Second, he became haughty and reckless, the height of which was his foray into the murky terrain of partisan politics.
In an unprecedented move, Emefiele, against the dictates of the CBN Act which provides that the Governor must remain apolitical and independent at all times to preserve the nonpartisan posture of the bank, threw his hat in the presidential ring, without resigning his office. That was scandalous.
And expectedly, it became messy when what started as a rumour soon assumed a life of its own when a group of “rice farmers” banded together to purchase the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential nomination and expression of interest forms for him at a whopping sum of N100 million.
The drama soon became bizarre. After initially rejecting the forms and denying interest in the race, Emefiele dramatically filed a lawsuit at the Federal High Court, Abuja seeking an order directing INEC and the office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) not to stop him from contesting the primaries even as he sat pretty as the CBN Governor.
He wanted to have his cake and eat it too. Civil society organisations and outraged Nigerians called his bluff and filed multiple cases in court demanding his sack for violating the CBN Act. When the matter became very embarrassing, President Buhari stepped in, ordered him to choose either of the two – his job or the rat race for the presidency. Common sense prevailed and he dropped out of the race. But many people, particularly political top guns, never forgot the hubris and impudence of a man they saw as an upstart and decided to lie in wait for him.
Apparently, the opportunity came when on October 26, 2022, Emefiele announced that the CBN, with Buhari’s approval, would redesign N200, N500, N1000 notes. The new notes will be available from December 15 even as the old notes will cease to be legal tender on January 31, 2023.
Emefiele, who said N2.73 trillion, over 80 per cent of the total cash of N3.23 trillion in circulation exists outside the banking system, said the decision would impact the naira value, reduce counterfeiting, encourage a cashless economy, stave-off cash hoarding, bring more people into the financial sector, and reduce incidences of kidnapping and terrorism.
Lofty ideas, no doubt! But the policy, particularly the concomitant cash withdrawal limit, affronted politicians preparing for the 2023 elections.
Two days later, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmad, who obviously has a beef with the CBN Governor over his perceived interference in fiscal policy, disowned the policy, warning of dire consequences should the CBN go ahead with it.
But Emefiele countered her immediately, insisting that he does not need to consult Ahmed to redesign the naira notes. “With the president’s approval in writing, the CBN does not need to consult anyone else,” he said.
On October 30, Buhari backed the CBN helmsman and threw the Finance Minister under the bus. “People with illicit money buried under the soil will have a challenge with this but workers, businesses with legitimate incomes will face no difficulties at all,” the President declared.
And on November 19, he unveiled the redesigned naira notes at the Council Chambers of the State House, with Emefiele assuring that the move was not targeted at anyone.
“This move is to enable the Central Bank of Nigeria have control over the size of money in circulation. There is no need to think that the programme is targeted at anyone,” he said even as he disclosed that plans for the project started early in the year and therefore had nothing to do with the upcoming elections. “In the past, attempts to redesign and reissue currencies have been resisted. Only a President of Muhammadu Buhari’s character could have made it happen.”
Then, when everyone thought that the coast was clear for Emefiele with Buhari’s unalloyed support, the ground began to shift beneath him. On December 2022, the Department of State Services (DSS) went to court seeking an order to arrest and detain him over allegations bordering on “acts of financing terrorism, fraudulent activities and economic crimes of national security dimension.”
He survived, albeit temporarily. In declining the motion ex parte, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice J.T. Tsoho, said the secret police did not provide any concrete evidence to substantiate its claims. He also wondered why the name of the respondent was given simply as ‘Godwin Emefiele’ without a material disclosure that he is the same person as the CBN governor, a high ranking public official who occupies an extremely sensitive position.
Justice Tsoho also said such an application should have been accompanied with a presidential approval because of the grave implications for the Nigerian economy if the CBN governor is arrested and detained.
Though the court ruling was victory for him, Emefiele has stayed in the system for too long to know that the gestapo system Buhari has built does not take prisoners. Obviously the daggers are out, apparently with Buhari’s tacit support since the DSS could not have embarked on such a project without his buy-in. Hearkening to the ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ wisecrack, he fled the country even before a group – Incorporated Trustees of Forum for Accountability and Good Leadership – went back to court seeking an order barring the DSS from arresting him.
On December 29, 2022, Justice MA Hassan of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Garki, barred the DSS, Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba, Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the CBN, from arresting and detaining Emefiele.
But the DSS is not backing off. Instead, they have warned Nigerians to steer clear of the matter, vowing that no one can stop them from carrying out their statutory duties. Yet, as Justice Tsoho noted, they have not presented any concrete evidence to support the application, grave as the allegations against Emefiele are.
But I doubt if any Nigerian believes that Emefiele is a terrorist as the DSS is alleging. Allegations of fraud and economic crimes of national security dimension are a different kettle of fish.
I agree that in his effort to remain in the good books of the powers-that-be, Emefiele, no doubt, has committed some economic crimes, one of which is the vexatious N23.7 trillion Ways and Means advances to the Federal Government which the Senate has refused to approve after it has been spent.
But truth be told, there is hardly any of the economic crimes that Emefiele committed without the knowledge of Buhari or connivance of his trusted allies – the cabal.
So, it is safe to say that contrary to DSS’ claims, Emefiele’s travails obviously stemmed from the naira redesign project, and, therefore, political. Some people definitely want him out of the way. It will be hard to believe that Buhari does not know this, which explains why many are asking whether his silence means he actually believes the country’s chief banker is, indeed, a terrorist.
Emefiele’s absence at a time like this speaks volume. But his going AWOL – absent without official leave – is understandable. The only power in Nigeria that can mitigate his travails is Buhari, who has refused to lift a finger even as his traducers are ratcheting up the pressure.
On Wednesday, some apparently suborned placard-carrying youths under the auspices of the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) protested at the CBN headquarters in Abuja. Insisting that the CBN Governor was a threat to national security, they demanded he must resign or be sacked.
To be sure, not many Nigerians care a hoot about Emefiele because of his perceived role in the country’s economic mess. But this absurd drama does not exalt Nigeria, either.
No-matter what the issues are, the Emefiele debacle says a lot about the normlessness Buhari has bequeathed the nation.
As Prof Pat Utomi noted in a recent interview with TheNiche: “Now the country has a Central Bank Governor that we don’t know where he is and we don’t know what the issues are. These are huge moral questions that should make Buhari and the APC not even to think of seeking public office.”