The planned relocation of some federal government departments from Abuja back to where they came from in Lagos started surreptitiously until the hearsay gained traction early this year. Confirmations were quick to be made that some strategic departments of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and FAAN of the Ministry of Aviation are heading back to Lagos.
Understandably a lot of fuss has been generated over the past few days in the media on the matter. Many agitators have even gone to the extent of pinning down the blame on the Presidency. Maybe to deflect such criticisms, the Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo recently came on primetime television asserting that the idea to move FAAN to Lagos was a ministerial decision that did not require getting a nod from the president.
The CBN, when pressed sang from the same song sheet and even went further to unfold they had built a new office for the purpose in Lagos. One or two former governors of the CBN came out to verify the story and support the stance of the CBN. Nevertheless, we know how touchy it is to attempt to move any federal institution out of Abuja or anywhere else. Early in the life of the Obasanjo administration at the turn of the millennium, we witnessed the same manoeuvrings that raised a lot of dust at the time. At least thence, President Obasanjo was courageous enough to own and defend his decisions. I guess, even with the events unfolding, the Presidency has been in the know and that’s why its officials have been out firing on all cylinders lending credence to the moves.
But why all the fuss over the relocation of key departments of the CBN back to Lagos? From my perspective, it all derives from the fact that the CBN, for some time now, has lost the trust of the average Nigerian. This administration since it assumed office last year has never lost any opportunity to show how corrupt the CBN had been under the former governor, Godwin Emefiele.
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Unfortunately, the new kid on the block, the new governor of the CBN, Olayemi Cardoso, and his coterie of deputy governors, have not shown that they could be better than the predecessors they are busy traducing. No doubt, the new CBN governor came amidst high expectations having been a reputable banker who had a brilliant tenure as commissioner of finance in the administration of Ahmed Bola Tinubu when he was governor of Lagos State.
Alas, it seems as if the rot his predecessors left behind in the CBN has overwhelmed him or as it is now becoming perceptible his credentials to deal with the situation have been grossly oversubscribed. This is evident from his wobbly attempts to tackle his primary function of defending the integrity of the naira. Many even allude to the insinuations that his tenure is jinxed because all the corrective measures he has prescribed so far to shore up the value of the naira tended to sink it much deeper into an abyss.
I doubt if any living Nigerian today has ever witnessed the rapidity with which our national currency has fallen in the last few months with all the wider ramifications in the macro level of the economy, galloping inflation and all that.
With all these mounting problems to handle, one is surprised that the CBN governor decided willfully to run into unnecessary political trouble waters by making the moves to transfer departments to Lagos. Perhaps, if the CBN governor had chosen a more conducive atmosphere and had proposed to implement the transfers in bits for the reasons alluded there wouldn’t have been many raised eyebrows.
The CBN governor could even be right that he needed those departments in Lagos to be closer to what they are assigned to do. By doing that, the CBN will be in good company. At least one of the key federal government parastatals also involved with banking and financial regulation has retained two or three of its most important departments in Lagos without attracting any public uproar.
Some of the reasons the CBN gave for the relocation of the departments to Lagos have been pooh-poohed by many who have inside knowledge of the goings-on. They say it is laughable for the CBN to claim that it is the lack of office space that prompted the relocation while it is public knowledge that the CBN, besides its overburdened headquarters building, has some other suitable properties within Abuja that could have taken the load of its staff. Some of these CBN properties have been loaned to its agencies to use, like the one in the Wuse District that is now occupied by one of its agencies.
In any case, many ask why the insistence on Lagos when the country had collectively rejected it as a federal capital due to its distance from the majority of the states, its congestion and lack of space for expansion when needed. Abuja, on the other hand, is blessed with ample room for expansion and the CBN with the generous resources at its disposal can build offices anywhere within its boundaries. Unless the CBN has some other reasons, the relocation of the departments is untenable. We continue the discussion next week.
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