CNPP, others urge judges to join political race
A former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Prof. Kingsley Moghalu has described the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emeifele’s involvement in politics while in office as a gross breach of the CBN Act.
He accused Emefiele of using public office to attain his personal interest, urging Nigerians not to reward such an act.
Moghalu, himself a presidential aspirant but under banner of the African Democratic Congress, said: “I weep for this nation with the development at the CBN”.
Speaking while picking up the Expression of Interest form at the party’s secretariat in Abuja on Tuesday, the former CBN chief further said: “It is deeply wrong to play politics while in office. It is a violation of ethics, morals and the law. What we are seeing is the privatisation of public office for personal gains.
“The CBN Act is clear. Section (9) states that the CBN Governor and his Deputy should not engage in other employment or vocation. A vocation is something that could take up your time. It may not be a job, it may not be something you could put your hands on, but something that you have your mind and heart in apart from your duties. For the CBN Governor, his heart and mind are in politics up to the extent of going to a law court to seek support for his ambition.
“First of all, I want to say Nigerians have no business in rewarding this massive breach of the rule of law because the action of the CBN Governor shows contempt of the rule of law.
“The individual in question has been monumentally incompetent and Nigerians should not support incompetence”.
The former CBN Deputy Governor said Emefiele should be held responsible for the rising inflation in the country.
He explained that the CBN was statutorily responsible to guard against inflation and not the President.
Moghalu said, “Inflation is a very serious issue. If you have high inflation in a sustained manner the way we have it, it is a performance failure of the CBN because the President does not manage inflation. Statutorily, it is the function of the CBN. And under the CBN Act, CBN is supposed to be independent. When I was the Deputy Governor of CBN between 2009 and 2014, we were able to bring inflation from double-digit down to eight per cent before we left office. Now inflation is around 16 per cent”.
Moghalu stated that the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities would never happen if elected the President, adding that he would dedicate 20 per cent of the annual budget to education.
Moghalu also promised to embark on massive Police reform and employ and increase the number of the Force in the country to one million.
To curb insecurity in the country, he said the manpower of the Police must increase.
Also, the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) has also called on the President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the Emiefele as CBN Governor over his involvement in politics.
At a media engagement held alongside the Coalition of National Civil Society Organisations, CNPP Secretary General, Chief Willy Ezugwu, and the National Secretary for the CSOs, Ali Abacha insisted that Emefiele’s involvement in politics was in clear violation of the Public Service rules and the CBN Act.
The groups threatened that they would persuade serving judicial officers to pick up nomination forms from political parties of their choice should President Buhari fail to sack Emefiele.
“Our findings revealed that Mr Godwin Emefiele joined the APC and became a card-carrying member of the party in 2019, which proved that the CBN Governor’s presidential ambition was premeditated and had been in his plans before 2019 when he eventually joined partisan politics.
“This is contrary to Mr Godwin Emefiele’s position that his focus was on his job at the CBN.
“Emefiele’s declaration for President is in clear violation of the Public Service rules and the CBN Act.
“In line with the establishment of the CBN by law as an independent bank by virtue of Section 1 (3) of the CBN Act, its Governor should be non-partisan. But here we have a card-carrying member of APC since 2019 as Governor of Nigeria’s apex bank and financial regulatory institution.
“In the light of the above, we maintain our position that Mr Godwin Emefiele must resign before seeking nomination as a presidential aspirant and before participating in APC presidential primaries, and that in line with the CBN Act, Mr Emefiele must show evidence that he has submitted his letter of resignation to President Muhammadu Buhari three months before the date of purchase of his nomination forms which are in his name.
“If Mr President allows this impunity to continue, we then call on all judges, justices and judicial officers to pick up their nomination forms from political parties”, they submitted.
