By Osariwian Becky Davids
On the brink of completing a record-setting two terms as the Governor of Nigeria’s apex bank, the CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele has set his sights on a bigger goal. He wants to occupy the highest office in the land. The nation’s purser, infamous for his dubious generosity, now wants to be king.
Several inside sources have confirmed rounds of meetings held by his confidants on how to court Nigeria’s powerbrokers and convince them of the viability of his candidacy. High on their list of targets are captains of industries and business leaders. The bait they are dangling is that Mr. Emefiele is “one of us” and it’s high time the country’s private funders preside directly over its affairs.
The plot, if successful, though unlikely to, would mark Godwin Emefiele’s complete transition from professional to a politician. Many will consider it a natural evolution and fitting end to Emefiele’s CBN adventure – or misadventure, depending on how you choose to look at it. Since his 2014 appointment, he has acted more a politician than a banker and economist who is legally and professionally obligated to be above the fray.
He is a man of many negative firsts who guided Nigeria’s finances to unprecedented lows. Much to the dismay of financial experts, and indeed lots of Nigerians, some of whom felt strongly enough to stage notable protests calling for his exit, Mr. Emefiele rapidly expanded the remit of his office to include unrelated matters. He did this at the expense of his core duties of smart regulation and policy development.
His success, therefore, is not measured in policy effects and meaningful, growth-inducing regulation as would ordinarily be the case. Instead, Mr. Emefiele has made his tenure about the number of seedlings commissioned and fertilizers distributed. Such is the exceptionality of his reign.
Under his watch, the naira came hurtling down, with billions wasted in a never-ending quest to fight and defy basic economic principles. Punching the air over his unsurprising failure, Mr. Emefiele tossed the reputation of Nigeria’s apex bank in the sewers by staging a theatrical press conference where he blamed a website for Nigeria’s exchange woes and challenged its administrators to a public fight. It was a pathetic moment that summarized his messy reign.
Some, in fact, still wonder how he got reappointed following the expiration of his first stint in 2019. Despite the Buhari-administration’s routine remonstration over the damaging corruption that pervaded and brought Goodluck Jonathan’s regime, it has largely overlooked Emefiele’s role as the man who flung the doors open and enabled a looting spree. Nigerians, though, did not forget – especially his part in the Dasuki scandal in which billions meant to arm the military and quell a devastating insurgency went to private accounts.
These failures, sources say, pose the biggest challenge to his backers who seek to win him the support of Nigeria’s billionaires. His reign has inflicted deep wounds in their pockets and businesses. Owing to his stark policy illiteracy, and the consequent tumbling of the naira, not only have their net worth and revenue ratings dropped, acquired loans benchmarked in dollars have also recorded a significant spike. They now have to pay more to settle those loans, even with access to the much-coveted “official rate”, since Emefiele’s determination to proclaim prices, in place of influencing the market with informed policies, has created multiple market rates.
Evidently, the “one of us” campaign strategy is all but dead on arrival. The industry captains simply do not consider Emefiele one of them; their view of him is rather that of a bumbling public servant whose incompetence and lack of guts halted progress.
He may be expecting sympathies elsewhere, specifically from the man he wishes to succeed. His unrelenting and incautious focus on agriculture, a sector President Buhari believes to be crucial to Nigeria’s escape from poverty, forms part of a calculated effort to win the President’s highly-prized endorsement.
Through his political allies, he has sought to impress on the President the falsehood that his interventions in rice farming have secured national self-sufficiency in that respect. The recent launch of “rice pyramids” was orchestrated to further the falsehood. But even that pack of cards is fast crumbling. Far more influential power strongholds in the Villa, aware of Emefiele’s gimmick and game plan, are now keen on unraveling his lies and empty posturing.
Besides, whatever ‘success’ he may lay claims to in agriculture, a sector not directly under his remit, is undercut by persisting inflationary pressures caused directly by his poor management.
There is also no reasonable political argument for his possible emergence. Beyond hopes to profit from the growing call for power shift to the southern part of the country where he is from, Mr. Godwin Emefiele has little else going for him.
Mr. Godwin Emefiele has for eight years run one of Nigeria’s most important institutions with empty air and wishful thinking. The same sentiments have animated this implausible Presidential flight of fancy. Perhaps this will force those who have, for long, overlooked his failures to reconcile him with reality and put him out of his misery for good.
Osariwian Becky Davids writes from Warri, Delta state