For eight years, Nigerian politicians, except for Godwin Obaseki, Edo state governor, and a few others, kept urging Godwin Emiefele on as he printed free money for the government illegally. The law only allowed the Central Bank to lend to the government not more than 5 percent of its revenues yearly. But Emiefele did not care. An otherwise, incompetent and amoral fellow, he largely operated as a rogue central banker, bludgeoning the Nigerian economy with one catastrophic monetary policy decision after another while violating all ethics, norms, and procedures so long as it satisfied his political masters.
As at the last count, he has lent over N23.72 trillion ($53 billion) in its so-called “Ways and Means Advances” to the federal government while raising the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) to a world record of 32.50 percent in September 2022 and throttling the private sector to manage run-away inflation, unsuccessfully.
But perhaps, the most enduring damage he wrought on the country and the central bank is the dismantling of an otherwise independent, strong, and robust monetary institution, almost completely eroding its capacity to perform its duty independently and efficiently. And all these are being done publicly before the world markets, which have taken note and taken flight from Nigeria.
Yet Nigerian politicians kept cheering on Emiefele because he served their selfish interests and kept them liquid throughout. In 2020, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, even urged him to print more money to meet the exigencies of the moment. Emiefele responded in kind drawing more praise from politicians.
So astutely did he manage his relationship with his political masters and so subservient was he to their every wish that he made history by becoming the first and only governor of the central bank to be nominated and confirmed for a second term in office since the return to democratic rule in 1999. His confirmation hearing was the fastest request ever considered by the Senate, according to the President’s Special Assistant on National Assembly affairs. All senators were full of praise for Emiefele, describing his performance in his first term as “credible and impressive”.
Feeling entitled and emboldened, Emiefele attempted the unthinkable – gunning for the presidency while remaining governor of the Central Bank. Perhaps, that was when the scale fell out of the eyes of his political masters. But even though his ambition was immediately shut down, he was sufficiently loyal to do the dirty bidding of the president who is desperate to replicate all the antiquated and failed policies he implemented as a military dictator in 1984.
Therefore, when he announced, in November 2022, a currency redesign with very tight deadlines, I immediately smelt a rat. I thought it would be an onerous deadline even for an independent and efficient central bank to meet not to talk of our hollowed central bank. But there was no stopping him. The minister of finance felt the same and although she protested loudly, the president shut her up declaring that he authorised the redesign. The official reasons given for the redesign did not add up and I felt it was done to achieve a more sinister political goal.
Not only has the currency redesign failed massively it is almost leading to a national revolt, but it has also led to a rupture in the ranks of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), pitting the presidential candidate against the president with the former accusing the latter of trying to torpedo his electoral chances. Sadly, the Nigerian masses have become collateral damage in this big political showdown between the president and members of his party.
Since then, it has been one bizarre event after another. Earlier this year, it emerged out of the blues that the Department of State Security (DSS) was seeking the arrest of Emefiele for “terrorism financing, fraudulent activities, and involvement in economic crimes of national security dimension.” Tipped off, Emiefele promptly went into exile, returning only after he was provided with iron-clad security to prevent his arrest by the DSS. Curiously, the case has been forgotten and the same Emiefele is now ordering the DSS to arrest bankers and so-called saboteurs of the currency redesign scheme. What a country!
Sensing the suffering caused by the policy and the political damage it is likely to wreak on the party in the forthcoming elections, the APC apparatchiks moved swiftly to distance themselves from Emiefele and even Buhari. Both Tinubu, his mob, and the party’s governors have turned Emiefele into a punching bag. While Tinubu has not been shy to attack Buhari, the governors have been less confrontational, blaming an amorphous cabal around the president rather than the president himself for the shambolic policy.
But make no mistake, the disaster that is Emeifele was the creation of the APC. They empowered him; they egged him on; they celebrated him as he dismantled Nigeria’s financial system and the economy one block at a time these last eight years.
I have always argued that when the history of this administration is being written, the recurring theme will be the savagery with which Nigeria’s already weak institutions were hacked and dismantled. Many Nigerians do not seem to realise it now, but the job of rebuilding our battered institutions will be one of the greatest challenges the country will face in the coming decades.
