By Bassey Ubong
“How do I handle this?” This question came from Nigeria’s foremost banker, Godwin Emefiele, who until 9th June 2023, was the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). In May 2019, a leaked telephone discussion with his Deputy, Mr. Lamek Adamu, went viral via Sahara Reporters online newspaper. The sentence above appears to summarise his nine-year tenure as the Governor/Chairman of the Board of CBN.
The way the currency change went showed a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who had little knowledge of content and modus of what he likely regarded as his star project. The question demonstrated in certain terms the reason for his lack of control as the slippery slope took the exercise and the entire Nigerian economy down a known precipice.
Mr. Emefiele’s slip downwards hit the limelight in May 2019 when Sahara Reporters released the controversial audio recording of what was supposed to have been an internal discussion the CEO had with his key staff. While the Deputy in a confident tone said “we have to crack our brains” to come up with ways and means to cover the loss of N500 billion sustained through a wrong investment in Dubai, the rattled CEO scrambled with ideas, because such a colossal loss as he admitted, would be disastrous to Nigeria’s economy.
The follow up to this daylight failure turned out to be a farce. Newspapers reported a brief meeting between Governor Emefiele and President Buhari in State House after which everything went silent.
Mr. Emefiele tacitly conceded authenticity of the telephone conversation and wrote to the primary agency all of us pass the buck to – the Nigeria Police – when official and some unofficial things get out of hand. He demanded the Police should investigate the bugging of his phone by unknown persons.
But the most incredible fallout came when the President, who ran on a platform of transparency in governance, nominated Governor Emefiele for a second five-year term, while the missing N500 billion remained missing! During the confirmation hearings, a Senator in the Panel commended the CBN Governor for excellent performance during his first term and told the victorious public servant the Panel members had no question for him. He was asked to take a bow and walk away.
Nigerians, how many of us have access to confirmation hearings in the United States Senate? The Emefiele confirmation confirmed the rubber-stamp status of Nigeria’s legislature at all levels. To expect the 10th National Assembly to be proactive, incisive, bold, and patriotic to Nigeria should be likened to River Niger becoming a sea.
The N500 billion debacle and the follow-up second term were acts pregnant with unintended consequences.
It must have informed Mr. Emefiele’s excessive confidence which pushed him to take a shot at the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential ticket in 2022. He took the step against the provisions of the CBN Act, and when challenged went to court to declare he had a right to be APC’s flag bearer, while he sat tight in office as CBN Governor.
A child in senior primary should have known Mr. Emefiele had overreached himself due to overestimation of self and underestimation of other players in the field.
When the press blew up the rationale for the change in colour and quality of the N200, N500, and N1,000 notes, a fight against money politics ranked primary. The press accused Mr. Emefiele of targeting Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who he may have believed had little capacity to win election outside money politics. Did he succeed as the campaign went on and rolled to a stop like a tired train? Images in social media showed Asiwaju in a Presidential Candidate mobile as he hurled bundles of the new currency to supporters at a Lagos rally.
Asiwaju has taken the oath of office and today runs Nigeria in line with his mantra and continues to tell the world no one should have seen “emi lokan” as a fluke. Nigerians, watch, because Barack Obama’s “Yes we can” and Donald Trump’s “America first” guided policy and practice throughout their tenures.
Mr. Emefiele’s fall and cascade along the slippery slope of history continued when he decided to hold onto his seat despite the clear handwriting on the wall.
In the United States, the concept of ‘cabinet of rivals’ follows when the winner picks his most strident critics, but they base their choices on the competence of the rivals.
Barack Obama picked Joe Biden who served for eight years as Vice President. Mr. Biden in turn picked Kamala Harris as his Deputy despite the frontal attacks the woman gave to him during the campaigns. Mr. Obama picked Mrs. Hilary Clinton as the Secretary of State, an office which appears to be much sought after because the occupant has more direct access to world leaders than the President he or she works with. Mrs. Clinton and Obama were the last two candidates standing as the Democratic Party primaries wound down.
Did Mr. Godwin Emefiele expect a cabinet of rivals in dear Nigeria? The concept works in mature democracies and where the people, rather than politicians, matter. Several Secretaries of Defense in Democratic Party presidencies have been Republicans, but they remain tied to their parties throughout their tenures.
I have written a post on carpet crossing in Nigeria versus some democracies in the world. As Mr. Emefiele faces stone-faced folks in the Department of State Services (DSS), he will have time to reflect on his excessive and unjustifiable confidence.
But he should have been wiser when President Buhari’s aides announced the President faced misinformation by the CBN on the intricacies of the currency change. When the same aides said President Buhari had no hand in CBN’s delay in execution of Supreme Court orders on the currency confusion, Mr. Emefiele should have wondered whether the same man out of Aso Rock will defend him in his palace at Daura. Mr. Emefiele, a worthy son of the Ika people in Delta State of Nigeria, how are the mighty fallen!
Another reason Mr. Emefiele should have put in his resignation to enable him leave with President Buhari relates to the baggage he must have amassed in nine years.
During the currency change episode, frequent mention filled the press with respect to his arrest. President Buhari took several last minute actions, and what if he gave Mr. Emefiele blanket cover before he left Aso Rock? Being a card-carrying member of APC (history records him as the first CBN Governor to openly identity with a political party) some sleight-of-hand would take place and he would have gone to the Bahamas or Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the world for ‘well-deserved’ rest while as usual, the CBN and Nigeria would flow on like a staid stream. Rather, he preferred to stretch his luck, because he must have thought the new President would be large-hearted enough to allow him the one year left in his turbulent second term. Why should a Nigerian politician expect a man with enormous powers to let go an opportunity to push his tribesman into an exalted office?
Well, I had planned to write a story on Mr. Godwin Emefiele after my five series on the cashless economy misstep. One of the angles I thought should be reviewed has to do with the idea of ‘his master’s voice.’ Did Mr. Godwin Emefiele have sufficient and enough independence to act as the de facto and de jure manager of the Nigerian financial system?
Few people know the Executive President takes knocks for a bad monetary system as well as a bad economy when the two officials who should be kicked are the Governor of Central Bank and Minister of Finance as applicable. The immediate past Minister of Finance complained in the open about being sidelined by Mr. Emefiele in the currency change and predicted failure of the exercise. Mr. Emefiele had no cause to worry, because he had the ears of Nigeria’s Chief Executive Officer, President Buhari. The woman must have gloated as CBN scrambled to contain the endless negative fallouts of the currency change and the cashless policy. No exercise of such magnitude and reach should have been attempted without full involvement of the Federal Ministry of Finance.
Who takes the blame in an organizational framework and in a democracy? Without a doubt, the President and Commander in Chief. But today, he sits in his palace at Daura with permanent immunity from harassment and prosecution unavailable in other democracies. Did Mr. Emefiele think because of his title of Governor he enjoyed immunity? If he did, he forgot the ease with which a man he fought against can remove him from office and get him to face prosecution.
But, no one should be surprised if, like the N500 billion scandal, Mr. Emefiele’s case goes to the back burner and by 2027 he pays whatever amount APC will charge for the platinum piece of paper known as Presidential Application Form.
In 2022, among those who paid the tiny sum of N100 million for the form included the Chief Executive of Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) ans some Ministers. Who knows whether the man has returned to his gilded seat and left Mr. Emefiele to stew alone? Two high profile Senators left their honourable seats, contested to be APC flag bearers, lost, and by court order went back to pick the occupied tickets of their zones and went back to the Senate in triumph. What a wonderful country!
Let us conclude this story with something I heard from no less a person than Nigeria’s second indigenous Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and first civilian President of the former Cross River State, late Chief Dr. Clement Isong. I had the rare privilege to have a brief interaction with the sage, and I asked him the reason Alhaji Abdulkadir Ahmed continued as Governor of CBN during the reign of Nigeria’s maximum CEO, General Sani Abacha. Dr. Isong told me he confronted his fellow CBN Governor and the man, in tears, said he had submitted his letter of resignation twice. General Abacha, I heard, told the man if he repeated the activity he would have no opportunity to regret.
The Governor read the message and went back to his office. Luck shone on the embattled man when the General appointed Dr. Paul Ogwuma to take over.
Anyone who knew what happened to the Governor of the Central Bank of Uganda under General Idi Amin Dada would understand the distress the longest-serving CBN Governor faced.
In essence, did Mr. Godwin Emefiele act of his own free will and despite his several missteps, continued like Ola Rotimi wrote of a cow who faced the question, “when will you return?”, and answered, “Till I am disgraced?”
Mr. Emefiele recorded good scores as Group Managing Director of Zenith Bank PLC and some high grades in his early days in CBN. But history in rare cases shows sympathy or identifies with failure. The fall and fall of Mr. Godwin Emefiele may just be at the first lap, but he needs sympathy and prayers as he faces unpleasant possibilities, except if the tunes he has released to this moment keeps him away from the slammer. Press statements point to masks with extra-large nostrils which he has mentioned as he chats with the DSS.
Dr Ubong, a writer and public policy analyst, lives in Uyo
