Democracy & Governance
Before You Crucify Godwin Emefiele -By Gozie Irogboli
The news of the suspension and arrest of Godwin Emefiele the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is dominating public discourse in the country now, diverting attention from the pains associated with the removal of fuel subsidy as announced by Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the day he took oath of office as the President of Nigeria. At present, Godwin Emefiele is facing prosecution in the court of public opinion. On daily basis we are being inundated with stories and inscrutable allegations of what he purportedly did while in office. The media spin masters are in overdrive and the gaslighting is on; allegations and unverified stories are being dredged out to justify the removal and arrest of Mr. Emefiele.
But what most of those who revel in the removal Emefiele have not bothered to ask is the real reason behind the suspension and incarceration of the erstwhile CBN boss. Was he removed because he committed fraud and if so was he the only one who has committed fraud in Nigeria in the immediate past regime to which Tinubu was a staunch member? Or was Mr. Godwin Emefiele being removed for the currency redesign and cash swap exercise which was said to be targeted at curtailing vote buying and electoral fraud planned by the politicians in the February General Election? Is Tinubu out to fight corruption or is he on a vengeful mission? Was Emefiele being removed because those who feel the Nigeria financial sector is their birthright cannot wait for another one year for his tenure to expire before they take over? Was Emefiele removed to engage Nigerians momentarily, divert attention from the fuel subsidy brouhaha and allow the government time to put its acts together?
We do not need to search too deep to get answers to these questions. Tinubu knew that the removal of fuel subsidy without corresponding measures to cushion the effects on the people is generating a lot of tension and discontent in the land and so he needed to do something to divert public attention from the issue of subsidy removal. He decided to make Emefiele the scapegoat to cover up for his unpreparedness for governance despite his much advertised manifesto and vaunted claim to readiness. He did what he did because he knows the mentality of Nigerian populace: disoriented by induced poverty, divided by religion and ethnicity. He knows that Nigerians are credulous, gullible, fickle-minded and malleable. He decided to pick on Emefiele probably because he also knows how divided the Igbo and the South-south people are when it comes to the issue of solidarity knowing that they will never defend their own or fight back.
Gozie Irogboli
And of course anyone that thinks Tinubu removed Emefiele in order to fight corruption is obviously naïve and delusional. Heaven and earth know that Tinubu cannot fight corruption; he has no moral armament or force to do so, given his antecedents. Let no one be deceived; Tinubu is not out to fight corruption. Since the time of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, no government except one has been sincere about fighting corruption. They have all used the anti-graft agencies to haunt and hound perceived political enemies. During the immediate past regime that made so much noise about anti-corruption—and is the most wasteful and corrupt government ever in Nigeria—very few high profile politicians were convicted of fraud. Those convicted were three Igbo men – Orjih Uzor Kalu, Olisa Metuh and Peter Nwaoboshi and two Middle belt Christian politicians. Nobody from the Buhari’s Northwest and their Southwest partners and collaborators were convicted. How do you want us to trust such skewed and revanchist system to fight corruption?
Another reason why Tinubu removed Emefiele is associated with his desire to take firm control of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the financial sector and other sources of revenue to the country. Obviously, he did not trust Emefiele’s loyalty. He knows that Emefiele still has one year left of his tenure and he cannot wait for that to elapse. It is no secret that Tinubu and his people see the control of the Nigerian financial sector as their birthright. It is clear to keen observers that since the coming of the All Progressives Congress (APC) regime in 2015 that Tinubu has not hidden his ambition to plant his surrogate as the governor of the nation’s Apex Bank. In the past, forces interested in taking over the control of the CBN have used their hirelings in the media to subtly attack Emefiele. They tried unsuccessfully to trump up unsubstantiated allegations but all that failed because Buhari was not disposed to ceding the control of the CBN to Tinubu more so as Emefiele was doing his bidding. Since 2015 when the APC came to power, Mr. Godwin Emefiele has faced a lot of attacks from different fronts. Recall that on September 29th 2016 his wife Mrs. Margaret Emefiele was kidnapped. Many believed that this kidnap saga was connected with the plot to have him back down as the CBN governor as it was reported that those who carried out the kidnap could not be prosecuted despite the report of their arrest because one Umar Abubakar who led the assault mysteriously died in police custody.
The third and the most plausible reason for the removal of Mr. Emefiele was to punish him for the CBN’s currency redesign and cash swap policy which Tinubu and his team interpreted was meant to frustrate his presidential ambition. Thus, Tinubu is presumed to be on a vengeful mission and he is using the state power to pursue personal vendetta. Otherwise, why would he want to punish Emefiele for the policy of the government to which he was part of; a government he has appraised to have done very well and whose policies he had pledged to sustain? The allegation that Emefiele was funding the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was a barefaced attempt to call a dog a bad name in order to hang it. If he did, security report would have revealed it to Buhari who hated Nnamdi Kalu and his IPOB group and Buhari would have long prosecuted Emefiele.
Evidently, the humiliation of Emefiele has proved that those who opined during the CBN’s cash swap exercise in February that Tinubu and the APC governors’ protestation against the policy was because they planned to buy vote were right. And if Emefiele is not being persecuted for the currency redesign and cash swap policy design to curtail vote buying and electoral malfeasance, then I challenge Tinubu to extend his action to the NNPC, FIRS, Presidency, Ministry of Finance and Humanitarian Services and other government agencies and parastatals. Tinubu should probe INEC and electoral malfeasance, probe the incidences of oil theft, subsidy payment fraud that had the country fritter the humongous sum of eleven trillion naira in eight years, probe government profligacy and excessive borrowing, the school feeding scam that fed school children that were at home during the COVID-19 lockdown, the #5.9billion allegedly spent by the Ministry of Humanitarian Services to train 177 youth on computer repairs, the office of the Vice-president and the Social Intervention Fund, etcetera.
I am not speaking for Emefiele but I sympathize with him for he is obviously being made a sacrificial lamb. I want Nigerians to know that the travails of Emefiele have nothing to do with anti-corruption fight. It is vengeful. It is a distraction from the failure of governance. In 2014 when President Goodluck Jonathan suspended Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as the CBN governor, this same Tinubu and his group kicked and said that the president has no powers to suspend the CBN governor. However, I know that Tinubu cannot prosecute Emefiele who knows all the secret of their financial dealings without opening a can of worms.
Indeed, it is assumed normal for members of the public to condemn anyone purported to have breached public trust. But before you join them in demonizing Emefiele, you should stop to ponder why Tinubu has to pick on him. If Tinubu is not on personal vendetta; if he really wants to fight corruption and if he wants to fight terrorism as it is presumed, he knows where to begin. Therefore, I must adjure every Nigerian to be vigilant and don’t be distracted by the antics and the shenanigans of our political actors who see us as puns in their political chessboard.
From all indications, Tinubu’s ultimate aim apart from punishing Emefiele for the currency redesign and cash swap policy aimed at frustrating his personal ambition and diverting our attention from his unpreparedness for governance, is to take over the control of the CBN and to maintain a vise grip on the economy and other sources of revenue to the country just as he did in Lagos State.
Gozie Irogboli,
An economist, a novelist and a public policy analyst
