The whole of the Abuja City Center is littered with campaign posters of different presidential hopefuls. Candidates like Bola Tinubu, Dele Momodu, Yahya Bello, Peter Obi, Yemi Osinbajo Omoyele Sowore, and the likes are all pasted over strategic locations in Abuja.
The most shocking one is seeing the face of the current CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele on Presidential campaign posters. A sitting Chief Executive Officer of the number one bank in the country, the CEO of the financial and economic management of the country in the presidential race without first resigning?
It all started as a joke when a group organized a press conference asking the CBN Governor to join the presidential race, the group claimed that the governor has done a great job, better than his predecessors as the CBN Governor, hence, he deserves to be the president of the nation. I wouldn’t want to waste my time and the readers’ time in countering that line of thought by the CBN Governor’s followers claiming that he has done well for the Nigerian economy because “res ipsa loquitur”.
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Today in Abuja, we the Abuja residents were amazed to see that the “Godwin Emefiele for president” campaign group that was at first treated as a jobless bunches looking for cheap attention got a delivery of a large number of vehicles with Godwin Emefiele’s presidential poster decorated all over the vehicle to boost the presidential campaign of the sitting CBN Governor.
Who is sponsoring these guys? Who is funding the movement?
The CBN Governor is yet to officially declare his ambition neither has he officially disassociated himself from his campaigners. His silence is not golden at this point, Nigerians are itching to hear from him and know the right position of things. This is the Governor of the Central Bank we are talking about here for Jesus’ sake.
Albeit, he is a Nigerian citizen and he has the right to contest for any political position available in the country so if being the president is always his ambition he has the right to publicly declare his intention and join the race but he must first step down as the governor of the number one bank in the country. The position he is currently occupying is not a political position and someone occupying such a strategic position ought to and in every moral and legal sense of it be apolitical.
It is totally wrong for the CBN Governor to be meddling in politics, if he is not the one sponsoring directly or indirectly his presidential campaign then he should publicly disassociate himself from it… But Nigerians ain’t fools, the exponential expansion of the “Godwin Emefiele for president” campaign is pointing towards the fact that he is cheering his campaigners on if not it ought to have been aborted already.
Legally speaking, the Central Bank of Nigeria Act 2007 stated that the Bank is an independent body and should function the same. The Act subsequently provides that the CBN Governor shall devote all of his time to the service of the bank and shall not for any reason whatsoever engage in any other job either on a full time or part-time basis or any other vocation whether remunerated or otherwise, neither should anybody occupying such a strategic position as the CEO of the bank or even the staffs of the bank dabble into politics. They are expected and ought to be politically neutral.
Nobody is denying Mr. Emefiele’s franchise, he is eligible but there are laws and procedures to be followed. Even if we have decided to throw morality and public policy rules into the gutter, there are laws that are to be followed.