FESTUS ERIYE FROM THE NATION
Two of Nigeria’s leading newspapers – The Nation and Leadership – just chose President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Person of the Year for 2023. In the tradition pioneered by the American news magazine Time in 1927, this award goes to “a person, a group, idea, or object that “for better or for worse… has done the most to influence the events of the year.”
In most election years in the United States, whoever is elected president becomes the magazine’s Person of the Year. So, Tinubu’s selection by the aforementioned newspapers reflects the traditional pattern.
But well before his election in February and inauguration on May 29, there was a powerful individual whose actions had the potential to influence the outcome of the general elections and impact the economic wellbeing of millions of Nigerians. His name is Godwin Emefiele, former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
There are different ways to measure how much progress a country is making. You could look at the GDP, how many people are living below the poverty line, literacy level, state of public infrastructure and so on.
Another way is to examine the conduct of people in public office. This is especially important given our history that speaks largely of incompetence, mismanagement and corruption. Emefiele’s actions earlier this year exemplified much that is wrong Nigeria – impunity and decay of institutions.
Late in 2022, the CBN served notice that it would introduce new designs for certain naira denominations and set a date in January 2023 for which this task must be accomplished. The initial excuse for the action was that the bulk of the nation’s cash was floating outside the system. The swap was supposed to vacuum all of that money back into bank vaults.
But as we would all soon learn there was more to it than economics. In reality, it was a move designed to frustrate certain political figures who the then administration felt had stockpiled an unbelievable amount of naira for vote-buying.
While the desire of having an electoral process that wasn’t compromised by cash was laudable, the currency swap was not only ill-timed, its execution was disastrous. There was a stampede to returned old notes with very few new ones to replace them.
ATM’s were empty; banking halls became battles zones. We were told to go cashless using online transfers. The problem was most banks lacked the infrastructure to support this. It was the perfect Nigerian nightmare produced and directed by Emefiele.
If the fallout from the naira redesign fiasco was just about inconvenience, it would have been pardonable. There were more deadly consequences. People actually died as result of inability to access cash for treatment of their loved ones. Many small businesses shut down and as of today no one really knows how much was lost to this hare-brained scheme.
Such was the degree of suffering that at its height, Professor Wole Soyinka, accused the former CBN governor of crimes against humanity. Speaking on Channels Television, he blamed then President Muhammadu Buhari for enabling him.
“Emefiele has committed a crime against humanity, over and beyond even any electoral mago mago (foul play),” Soyinka said.
“He struck at the heart of the subsisting survival principles, minimal needs and entitlements of the ordinary people in the street.
“Don’t bully me. Don’t take my voice away. Don’t take my economic potential away, my economical entitlements. Don’t throw me on the mercy of sadists like Emefiele.”
