President Muhammadu Buhari has directed all heads of agencies, departments, parastatals and ambassadors with political ambitions to turn in their resignations.
The President in a circular on Thursday also directed the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele to resign.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha signed the circular which directed all heads of agencies with political ambition to resign.
The circular with reference number SGF/OP/ I/S.3/XII/ 173 was titled, ‘Ministers, heads of government agencies, ambassadors and other appointees with political ambitions to resign.
Meanwhile, some ministers in the cabinet of President Buhari have turned in their resignation letters following the directive of the President during the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting.
The President directed them to submit their resignation letters on or before Monday the 16th of May, 2022.
The likes of Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajuiba, Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio and Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu and Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi have tendered their resignation letter to focus on their presidential ambition.
Friends of Godwin Emefiele, Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), have declared that he is not planning to run for president in 2023 but focused on delivering on his mandate as governor of the apex bank.
The group, which called itself Friends of Emefiele, said it met with the CBN governor following media reports urging him to run for president to clarify the true situation.
The group in a statement on Tuesday said Emefiele disclosed to them that he had no such plans, except what God has willed for him.
The statement urged those sponsoring a “campaign of calumny to impugn the character of the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria” to desist and allow him focus on his mission to support President Muhamnadu Buhari in reviving the Nigeria economy.
The group frown at what it called “sponsored media reports on the purported interest” of Emefiele, “in the 2023 presidential race, leading to stampede by interested parties and vested interests who are resorting to all sorts of blackmail, sponsored articles and choreographed comments on social media targeted at tainting Godwin Emefiele’s image, impugning his character and legacy.”
They noted that Emefiele has not confirmed to anyone he is running for President even as he is
constitutionally qualified to do so, and has been under pressure in the past few weeks due to “unsolicited campaign for his candidacy”.
The group explained that after meeting with Emefiele on Monday, he told them he remained focused on his job and will continue to support the President Buhari-led
Federal Government’s economic recovery drive.
According to the group, the CBN governor said he had never lobbied for a job in all his career trajectory.
Emefiele told the group that after his appointment as the CBN governor in 2014 by former President Goodluck Jonathan, he remained “humbled by President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to grant him an unprecedented second term as CBN Governor- again without lobbying.”
Emefiele told the group that he believed “it’s the prerogative of President Muhammadu Buhari to plan his succession in line with global best practices for good governance for the continuing peace and progress” of Nigeria, “as such he will play his part to stabilise the economy for an orderly transition.”
Taking a historical account of when Emefiele assumed the position of the CBN Governor in June 2014, the group pointed out that “he has calmed the waters and put
Nigeria back on the path of growth,” despite challenges.
After the sharp fall in crude oil prices and a 13-month recession, he initiated major monetary policies that supported the Buhari administration and all 36 State governments, ensuring salaries were paid to steer Nigeria away from crisis.
The group pointed out that the second recession the country entered in 2020 was as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, yet CBN under Emefiele supported fiscal authorities with N100 billion health sector credit facility, one-year extension of a moratorium on principal repayments for CBN intervention facilities and reduction of the interest rate on intervention loans from 9 percent to 5 percent.
According to the group, Emefiele also strengthened Loan to Deposit ratio policy, created N400 billion target credit facility for affected households and small and medium enterprises, granted regulatory forbearance to banks to restructure terms of facilities in affected sectors among other interventions.
The Friends of Emefiele noted that ‘those behind the sponsored negative reports are afraid of Emefiele’s towering personality and
service to Nigeria.
“But they must understand that he cannot be stampeded any way. He is focused on delivering the mandate of the Central Bank; he is rebuilding the economy of the country through import substitution policies and using agriculture to create a new rural middle class from ground up.
“Those who continue to criticise the rice pyramid are too ashamed of giving glory to whom it is due.
“Emefiele is focused on his unfinished job and should not be distracted.”
Leave Emefiele out of politics, Economists warn propagandists
The North-South Economists’ Forum, NSEF, a focus group of development economists, has warned propagandists and information hawkers feasting on a phoney ‘Emefiele for President’ campaign not to drag the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, governor into the murky water of partisan politics.
Recently, some online news platforms flew a kite purporting that a group of top private sector players and some sitting governors were working on a script to install Mr. Godwin Emefiele as the next Nigerian president in the 2023 presidential election.
The report claimed that Emefiele may likely resign his appointment as CBN governor this month to throw his hat into the Presidential ring.
But the CBN has stoutly rebutted the story as disingenuously false, lacking in substance and therefore a figment of the imagination of its purveyors.
CBN spokesman, Osita Nwasinobi, described the report as a distraction from the CBN’s focus on its mandate of minding monetary policies, financial stability and supporting government programmes.
“I don’t know where that platform got their news from. We discuss monetary policies at the Central Bank and how to support the government, we don’t discuss politics. All these distractions, they should leave us out of them so that we can do our job,” Nwasinobi said.
However, the North-South Economists’ Forum said having done its independent investigation and consultations among highly placed Nigerian entrepreneurs some of whom were said to be among those promoting the Emefiele for President movement, it has discovered that the story was false in its entirety.
The body of Economists in a statement on Wednesday signed by its Chairman, Malam Ahmed Abdulkadir and Secretary, Dr. Chima Eboh, noted that “what was perceived to be a political meeting promoting Emefiele Presidential ambition was actually a meeting of governors, ex-governors, non-political actors, business people with proven economic management background, civil society organisations and the media, whose sole aim was to forge a new pathway for the growth and development of the nation.
“Emefiele was not on the agenda neither was he singled out for discussion at the meeting,” NSEF said.
The Economists urged the CBN governor to stay focused on his economic reengineering of the nation’s monetary policy framework to engender financial stability especially at these times when the nation is facing grave economic challenges.
NSEF charged those calling for Emefiele’s head and accusing him of playing partisan politics on the basis of a fake news to desist from such ill-advised adventure, adding that it ‘was childish and logically infantile to base their conclusion on a faulty premise.
“We have watched how the CBN under Emefiele has constricted the space for economic vampires who take advantage of the nation’s weak primary sector to import all manner of commodities into the country using forex sourced from CBN for local production of goods only to divert same to importation of the same products they originally claimed to manufacture in Nigeria.”
The group linked the renewed attacks on Emefiele to the economic crooks whom he has through the CBN policies of zero-forex for importation of commodities that can be easily grown in Nigeria and dozens of economic interventions by the CBN. It urged Emefiele not to be deterred by the headwinds created by this brood of economic saboteurs who have found easy recruits in some faceless organisations.
“Dragging Emefiele into politics is a show of aberrant mental indolence which does not advertise the propagandists as intelligent or persons given to critical thinking. As a body of Economists with strong bias for development, we consider it an effusion of ingratitude to ever imagine or conjecture that CBN under Emefiele is favouring one political party over another. That is the height of unreason,” the statement said.
The House of Representatives has summoned the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami (SAN), Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, to appear before it on Monday to explain the status of looted funds and public assets recovered in the last 18 years.
Also invited to appear before the House Ad Hoc Committee on Assessment and Status of All Recovered Loot, Movable and Immovable Assets, are Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government as well as top officials, the private sector and civil society organisations.
A statement from the Committee signed by its chairman, Adejoro Adeogun on Sunday, mandated the ministers and all other invitees to appear before it on Monday, “being the day the panel is holding an investigative hearing on the recovered assets.”
According to the statement, the investigation will cover the period between 2002 to 2020.
“The Committee is calling for memoranda from stakeholders and the general public pursuant to Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended)”, the statement added.
The essence of the hearing, according to Adeogun, was to ensure effective and efficient management and utilization of the recovered assets.
Stakeholders invited by the Committee to make inputs include the
Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption; Commercial Banks; Association of Bureau de Change Operators of Nigeria; Chairman of the Disbanded Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property and
Chairman of the Disbanded Pension Reform Task Team.
Others are the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Customs Service, Nigerian Navy, National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Central Bank of Nigeria; Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority; Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption; and commercial banks.
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