ADF tackles CBN over alleged mass purge of Igbo staff, calls on NASS to probe exercise
From Magnus Eze, Enugu
The AlaIgbo Development Foundation (ADF) has flayed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over its alleged skewness in the recent sack of directors and management staff of the Bank.
ADF said after a critically review of the exercise, that it has discovered that it was mass purge of Igbo technocrats and other senior operatives in the nation’s apex Bank.
National Secretary of ADF, Chief Abia Onyike, alleged that the purge was a calculated effort to wipe out the Igbo elements occupying directorship positions in the CBN as there was virtually no director of Igbo extraction left in the financial institution after the mass sack.
In a statement obtained in Enugu, he noted that this was in contravention to the federal character principle which promotes equity and spread in senior management positions in the country.
ADF believes that the administration of President Bola Tinubu, instead of embarking on the overall policy of economic recovery for the benefit of all Nigerians has decided to adopt separatist economic measures based on ethnic profiling and sectional agenda.
According to the group, the postulation by agents of the government that what was happening in the CBN was an effort to reposition and restructure its operations was a concoction to hoodwink Nigerians.
It, therefore, called on the National Assembly set up investigative panel to probe current happenings in the Nigerian financial institutions.
Part of the statement read: “There is an on-going policy of caging the financial sector by a single geopolitical zone in the country for its pecuniary gains. The total taking over of the CBN is the latest in a series of policy steps tailored to complete the total annexation of all major economic institutions by a single ethnic group in the country. Even the policy of seeing Lagos as the financial headquarters of Nigeria is questionable. Why only Lagos? What of Port-Harcourt or Owerri as oil headquarters of Nigeria?
“The South-West agenda of economic hegemony corresponds to the control of AMCON, NDIC, FIRS etc. by the same region. With these institutions in their hands, their control of the Nigerian economy is already complete.
“The Tinubu administration is hiding under the cloak of Emefiele’s trial to execute a selective purge in the financial sector by scandalizing rival groups in their bid to consolidate their hegemony on the Nigerian economy.”
In addition, ADF called on the Tinubu-led administration to embark on a general probe of the Buhari administration instead of engaging in orchestrated selective trials.
“No ethnic group or geopolitical zone should see the Nigerian economy as its exclusive preserve. There should be transparency and healthy competition in the course of rebuilding the Nigerian economy,” the Igbo group stated.
