Godwin Emefiele, governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, may have hit a master stroke, after all. High time. For most of his tenure so far, Nigeria’s chief banker has been engaged in a job that appears more like navigating a ship through stormy waters than controlling fiscal policies. It is not entirely his fault. He has, however, managed to appear substantially firm and clear-minded on his seat, even when many policies of the Central Bank under him have been criticized for failing to have that desired shot in the arm effect that the economy yearns for.
Emefiele has succeeded, well into his second term in office, to maintain a persona that still leaves many not clear of what exactly Godwin Emefiele is all about or what he represents. Very much like a quintessential banker, until he curiously left his prime banker’s seat few months ago and sauntered into the political arena. Till date, not many understand what that midday hug with the All Progressives Congress (APC) was all about.
In the wake of his being cajoled or nudged into a patchy script of an obviously dubious fund drive by the APC, which was dubbed purchase of interest form for presidential primaries, Emefiele lost many.
How a man who had not done badly in an enviable post as the country’s chief banker could abandon his sensitive job and elect to join a group of insensitive folks, many of who wear the wrecking of Nigeria’s economy as a badge, left many baffled. Some day may be, the man will say what he thought he was doing. Or who pushed him.
Having been corralled, alongside other hapless fellows into paying a mind-boggling amount as deposit, for a trip that ended even before it started, it must have dawned on many like Emefiele, who shelled out N100million apiece to purchase expression of interest form, that the whole shindig was a con. That, of course, is an entirely different story.
The CBN governor’s adventure to APC politics may have ended as unceremoniously as it started, but something was lost. Definitely. Trust. The ill-advised adventure engendered an understandable level of cynicism and suspicion towards the governor and the apex bank, including the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that had to wonder openly whether its sensitive materials will still be safe with the new party chieftain in town.
It was natural that many turned to look at the country’s chief banker as possibly a part of the problem, instead of a steady hand guiding the country’s troubled economy. Hopefully, time, the healer of disappointments and betrayals, has affected some restoration.
Did Emefiele’s experience at the hand of APC enforcers, in the days of expression of interest form and presidential primaries, leave unpleasant memories in his mind? May be. Did the recent decision by the CBN to re-design key Naira denominations have anything to do with what the CBN governor saw or felt at the APC bazaar? May be. A victim of mugging is in the best position to recount his experience. Having dropped N100 million into the open mouth of the sharks though, which whopping sum was not retrievable; having watched as United States dollars displaced the Naira as the instrument of transaction during the convention of the APC and its brother, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ;and presently bearing witness to billions of Naira being steadily pumped into political campaigns, without qualms, the CBN governor and whoever, must have been jolted to act.
The recent decision by the apex bank to re-design Naira denominations, as well as the tight time frame given for all old cash to find their way to banks or become useless, has triggered an earthquake in the home vaults of the politicians who stockpile currencies as trading goods. Suddenly, bundles of currencies, criminally rendered redundant and of no input to the national economy, are coming out. Images of truckloads of the Nigerian currency being moved to the banks from various storage facilities and currency bays, mostly owned by politicians, justify the CBN currency re-design decision. It is indeed, a master stroke.
The political process leading to the 2023 elections as well as the Nigerian economy, stand to gain, in the long run, from the new currency policy.
Reports from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) speak of interesting dilemma of politicians presently struggling to find means of disposing the staggering amounts buried in their homes. According to the chairman of EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa, three governors in particular, two from the northern side of the country and one from the southern area, are outstanding in their present dilemma. The governors are considering introducing the creative policy of paying workers in their states with raw cash. The unfolding drama will raise critical question when they eventually occur.
You can bet that the three governors in reference are not the only governors facing the currency nightmare. Many more must be involved. State governors have become the personification of abuses, lawlessness and intolerance in the Nigerian society. For many of them, there is no distinction between their personal affairs and the state. They are the state. Turning their basements and upper rooms into home banks, even as many of their citizens are dying in deprivation, mean nothing to them.
EFCC should proceed to do more than watching the governors and some other characters load money in trucks and dump at banks. The agency should work closely with the banks to interrogate where every load of Naira is coming from. Every act of wickedness that undermines the wellbeing of the society is by extension, economic sabotage.
Of course, there are various other issues of concern in the project of re-designing the Naira notes, the least of which is not the cost of the exercise. The revelation in the report of the Currency Operations Department of the CBN that N58.61billion was spent to print N2.52billion notes in 12 months in 2020 is not encouraging at all. Yet, that amount is said to be far less than what went into similar exercises in the two preceding years.
Even at this, the sheer wickedness and extreme abuse represented by crude acts of warehousing billions of raw cash at homes, with an eye on deploying them at critical political junctures to bend the will of the people, need to be checkmated. The bursting of the basement banks and sundry cash bays in private homes and farms across the country, has to be seen as necessary state action to save both the economy and the policy process from dangerous influences.
The CBN governor has struck a master stroke this time around. However, unless the exercise is decisively handled, with sanctions to boot, the lorry loads of cash being dumped at banks will create new and more distortions in the economy that has been abused and undermined by the same culprits for so long.