Emefiele may be sack over forex crisis

There are ominous signs that the days of Godwin Emefiele as the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) are numbered as the Federal Government on Monday heaped the forex crisis on the CBN boss.

President Muhammadu Buhari through his Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo-Udoma lamented that the foreign exchange restrictions by the CBN in the first half of this year was responsible for the adverse nature of the economy.

The buck-passing, is part of plans for the imminent sack of Emefiele who was appointed by former President Goodluck Jonathan after the sack of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, now Emir of Kano Emirate.

A source familiar with the intrigues told this newspaper that the groundwork was to portray the CBN boss as ineffectual and not in sync with the vision of the Buhari regime, thereby show him the way out.

“The grand design is simple. Paint Emefiele in bad light then ease him out. You will recall that the other day, an online paper alleged the payment of PR contract for the regime by the CBN, and then this was followed by a minister accusing the CBN of being responsible for the adverse nature of the economy when we know that the president resisted some decisions by the apex bank because he is fixated in making the naira at par with the dollar as it was in 1984,” the source said. 

Udo Udoma at a stakeholders’ consultative forum on the 2017- 2019 medium term expenditure framework (MTEF) held at the Banquet Hall of the State House in Abuja, also enumerated such activities as oil production disruptions in the Niger Delta, low oil revenue, low power generation, fuel supply problems in the first quarter (which have been resolved) and insurgency.

Udoma said inflation hit 16.5 percent in June; unemployment increased to 12.1 percent in March from 10.6 percent in December 2015 and created challenges for some state governments in paying salaries, in addition to the Federal Government giving bailout to states.

The consultations for 2017 to 2019 medium term expenditure framework and fiscal strategy 2017 to 2019 is in keeping with the dictates of the Fiscal Responsibility Act and the final draft is the material upon which those years’ budget would be based.