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Trial Of Brother Emefiele

Trial Of Brother Emefiele %Post Title

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weeks into what the apex monetary authorities had advertised as the most robust response to the variegated monetary policy challenges facing the Nigerian economy, call it an intriguing twist that its lead author and midwife has been practically in exile in what is alleged to be a spirited manoeuvre to escape the sword of Damocles dangling over his head.

Clearly, if the reports of a soft landing being procured – as alleged – for the once beloved-boy of the Buhari administration is to believed, it must have come as a tragic turn to the racy, sensational events of the past few weeks.

By the way, Nigeria must be the only country in the world – minus Idi Amin Dada’s Uganda that is – where a sitting CBN governor could be hunted like a common felon or in this instance, forced to shelter (temporarily?) in foreign shores without as much as stoking panic in the financial markets! Add to that the other paradox – the government of the federation pretending that the circus was another typical stunt by our big men to stoke excitement and so will resolve by itself; call it the perfect dysfunction and dissonance, the stuff of which the Buhari administration is made!

Until the December 9 order by Justice John Tsoho barring the Department of State Services, DSS, from arresting and detaining the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele on allegations bordering on terrorism financing and economic crimes, most Nigerians would most likely have passed of the tale of Emefiele’s impending arrest as one of those elite mind-games meant to distract and deflect.

Now, the truth is out: the man is being accused, far beyond the typical financial malfeasances for which our public officials have become renown, to high crimes bordering on national security.

And what do we know? Nothing – of course – outside of what the DSS glibly proclaims but which two separate justices – Tsoho and Muslim Hassan of the FCT High Courts – have up till this point, deemed insufficient for any prosecutorial authority to call him in for. Yet, the man is not only on the run, he has thus far left enough room for the wildest of speculations to thrive.

In the meantime, we have seen – as one might expect – hordes of disparate groups, spring up almost on daily basis to defend both Emefiele’s honour and his supposed innocence. From amorphous civil society groups claiming that the man is being hounded for standing up to politicians and other gamers of the financial system; we even had socio-cultural groups address press conferences as if to reveal another layer of the joke that Nigeria has become; only at the weekend, a body of Senior Advocates, had to call out the DSS for what they deemed to be an institutional overreach. The list of the intervention is endless just no tool is being spared in what promises to be more than mere battle of wits between his army of supporters and opponents. And lest I forget, there are countless other groups who can’t wait to see Emefiele locked up with the keys thrown into the Atlantic!

Terrorism and economic sabotage are by no means light accusations to be levelled against the nation’s topmost banker. Like the two justices aforementioned, most reasonable Nigerians would certainly want more details beyond those earlier moved via a one-sided, ex parte motion! The DSS cannot, and should not be allowed to assume any air of infallibility particularly on a matter in which a citizen’s liberty is concerned!

Beyond all of these however, the one question that should ring out loudly and which the country must seek answers is the point where things began to go wrong between Emefiele and the administration in which he was only too eager to play the marionette.

Let us just say that the man until recently could do no wrong!

For a powerful, unelected individual, Emefiele certainly knows how to deploy the power of the purse! Indeed, Emefiele at a point not only believed that he had the answers to every sectoral quest but the power even outside of the mandate of his institution to make the difference! Yes; that is how powerful he thought he was.

As at the last time I checked, Emefiele’s CBN is said to have some 37-odd “purpose-driven interventions that are functionally based, well-thought-out and born out of the critical issues within the economic space”. Those are the words of Osita Nwanisobi, the apex bank’s director, Corporate Communications. Suffice to state that no questions are being asked, or perhaps will ever be, on the impact of the multiple programmes – benchmarked against their stated objectives. Talk of a new day and age in apex bank developmentalism where money is simply thrown at a problem!”

I guess Emefiele’s relationship with the Buhari’s federal government is already public record. The principle appears to be – whatever the Buhari administration needed; Emefiele’s CBN supplied; no questions are asked even when laws are broken as many were indeed broken. The most notable of this was the criminal abuse of the so-called ways and means under which the country is currently burdened with a staggering N23.7trn advances. This is what President Buhari now wants to pass to our children, to be spread over 40 years, with three years moratorium on repayment, and an interest rate of nine per cent – all of this thanks to Emefiele.

How much of the current inflationary spiral could be put to Emefiele’s crude monetarism? Those who should know actually say that the man’s ideas are not only dated but astoundingly contradictory! They also say of his management of the exchange rate as lacking depth given current realities.

No doubt, Emefiele may have done well by his friends, the same special groups that wanted him propelled to the nation’s topmost job. It is certainly not his fault that he began to think and act as if our dear country belong to him and so he could do as he pleased.

Again, imagine a governor without the restraint of parliament; whose control of the purse knows no limits; an individual who could, in a fit of unbridled activism and assumed opportunistic exigency, collapse the dividing walls of monetary and fiscal management without a restraining voice; a player whose ego and sense of entitlement not only reckons him among the gods but also above the deep state. I couldn’t think of an individual more powerful under Buhari’s outsourced presidency.

And the sad part? He wanted more!  Now he must learn the lessons of those who before him were consumed by hubris!

•Written By Sanya Oni
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