Akeem Lasisi
Now that May 29 has finally come, it is obvious that the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, is no more going on study leave. And if at all he will later do so, the approval rumoured to have been granted by President Muhammadu Buhari may no more be automatically valid. As a matter of fact, the Presidency had later said it was unaware of the purported decision of Buhari granting study leave to Emefiele.
One then can imagine the first day he and the new President, Bola Tinubu, will have their first meeting. One on one! One wonders what would be going on in the mind of each before they arrive at the venue. My enemy at last or my friend at last?
Many believe that Emefiele worked against Tinubu’s emergence. Or he was a strategic agent in the hands of those who did so. This is borne out of the terrible naira redesign policy he introduced as the general elections approached. He mopped up the naira even as he failed to supply the new. Agony, violence and unprecedented fear and hunger became the lot of the people. Curiously, former President Muhammadu Buhari endorsed it, inspiring the rumour that he did not want Tinubu to succeed at the poll.
As former Governor Nasir el-Rufai argued then, however, it was some agents in the Presidency whom Emefiele was allegedly working for; those who had lost during the APC’s primaries that were desperate to de-market the party alongside Tinubu.
Even when courts ordered Emefiele and Buhari to cushion the suffering of the people by making the old currency available since the new was not, they remained adamant and never yielded until much damage had been done. It was then the stubborn and most resilient spirit in Tinubu reared his head as, amid the fears, he repeatedly told the electorate that even without money, ‘we would still vote’.
Well, Tinubu is in power now. Emefiele remains the CBN Governor. What happens at their ‘first meeting’ may not be known, but it will be interesting to see how they will work together. Of course, questions will be asked on how the redesign was managed and where the new notes have disappeared into.
