Nigeria, our country, will never let you be. It leaves you no room to understand anything not to talk of digesting it. If only one absurd thing happened in a week or even in a day for that matter, you may be able to wrap your head around it. No. Not here. We are confronted every day with multiple absurdities, especially from the political, economic and governmental sectors. You must be specially gifted to really grasp any of the issues that pop up ever so often. Last weekend, Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was arrested in his Lagos- home, driven in one of the less fancied trucks in his fleet of cars, SUVs and sundry luxury trucks to the airport, guided into a jet like a fugitive and flown to Abuja. Hours before then, he had been suspended from office by Nigeria’s President, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The nebulous office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation had issued a statement to the effect of Emefiele’s suspension. In one of the preceding paragraphs, I had deliberately described Emefiele as the governor of the CBN. Yes, we suspect the inevitable and how it will end but, for as long as he stays suspended, he remains the CBN governor, because nobody will be made the substantive governor before his sacking or the end of his tenure next year.
The video said to be that of Emefiele, gaunt, drained and apparently sufficiently cowed, speaks to the oft-repeated issues of man, life, influence and power. As an alumnus of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Emefiele is a lion. And he looked and lived every bit of it most of the time in his pilgrimage through the central bank. That’s until last weekend. We watched the footage over and over, and then wondered whether that was Emefiele who was spitting fire on national television while battling Abokifx founder whom he accused of fiddling with the value of the naira. Or even the obviously affected imperial and imperious Emefiele who would not entertain a contrary opinion during the height of the naira redesign and currency swap. No, that was not the Emefiele we saw on Saturday, June 10, being herded into an aircraft reportedly on his way to the dark recesses of the notorious dungeon of Nigeria’s secret police, otherwise called Department of State Services (DSS).
Now it counts for little, if any, that we once in this column early in the life of the regime of the former President, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, described Emefiele as a grovelling governor. Some people at the time countered us, saying that he had to do what he had to do because he was working ahead of securing a second term in office. He achieved that in 2019, which was a record since the return to rule by civilians and quasi-civilians in 1999. Will Emefiele rue the second term he ‘worked’ so very hard to earn? Time will tell.
The lion in Emefiele was again in full display ahead of the presidential primary election of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in mid-2022. He worked with the stealth of a lion waiting for prey. Not many people knew that our sitting CBN governor was a bonafide and card- carrying member of the APC and that he coveted and lusted over the highest office in the land, the presidency. He made a dash for it but he was checkmated by wily politicians. He went to court to enforce his ‘right’ to contest in the presidential primary election of the APC. He dropped the gambit, probably overwhelmed by the forces arrayed against his ambition.
Before Emefiele pulled back and out, numerous pictures and videos of his alleged branded campaign vehicles had trended on the social media. And his glossy, high-end posters announcing his entry into the presidential race had flooded parts of the country, especially Abuja.
While all these were going on, Emefiele sat pretty in the CBN governor’s office. As the Igbo would say, okuko n’agba egwu n’uzo nwere onye na-akuru ya nkwa n’akuku ohia (there’s someone in the bush nearby beating the drum for that chicken dancing by the roadside).
And so it turned out to be because after the rogue ambition of Emefiele failed miserably, he continued in office as if nothing had happened. There was no serious indication that then President, Gen. Buhari, noticed anything absurd, if not illegal, about the action of the now suspended governor. Neither did the National Assembly (NASS), the lapdog of the President, notice anything untoward. A nonfiction novel on the presidential quest of Emefiele could rival the Icarus Agenda novel, which dwelt on a puppet and the manipulative puppeteers in a quest for power elsewhere. The government primed the suspension, arrest and detention of Emefiele. It was an extended weekend given that yesterday was a public holiday. In our jurisdiction, you are arrested and detained first, then the government will go in search of evidence to prosecute you.
In some other climes, you are confronted with evidence of your alleged wrongdoing at the point of your arrest and detention. Here, you are guilty until proven innocent. Elsewhere, you are innocent until proven guilty. Who among us reading this has not concluded that Emefiele is guilty even before charges are preferred against him? We understand that, already, the DSS is working to seek the nod of a court to extend the detention of Emefiele. You wonder how this can be, given that this same agency had months ago sought a court order to arrest the same Emefiele for allegedly financing terrorists and for sundry economic crimes. Take Emefiele to court today, Tuesday. The alleged crimes for which DSS sought his arrest last year would put a man who is already 62 years old in prison for the rest of his life, if convicted. But as it stands, someone would be ready to pay a king’s ransom to know what’s going on in Emefiele’s mind in jail right now.
If we had once written about a grovelling CBN governor and followed it with another scathing article in the wake of his attempt to contest for the presidency while he was CBN governor, it should go without saying that we are not fans of Emefiele. However, assuming without conceding that the CBN governor was guilty of the yet to be preferred charges, should it not be concerning to Nigerians across board that his accusers and prospective jailers are not coming to equity with clean hands? The DSS is alleged to be a cesspool of corruption. And corruption is not limited to money matters. It is corruption and high handedness and impunity for one government agency to invade the offices of a sister agency and attempt to occupy them as the DSS did recently.
It took a presidential order for the secret police to pull back on their siege to the Lagos offices of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission [EFCC]. And we are supposed to be in a democracy. It was corruption in 2016 when the DSS invaded the homes of some justices of high and higher courts, dragged the jurists out of their beds in their pyjamas, detained and later arraigned them. We do not recall the DSS getting a single conviction from that exercise. And there was no apology to the humiliated justices. The same secret police once invaded the NASS complex on ‘orders from above’. Balderdash. In addition, can those who presently occupy the topmost offices in our beleaguered country claim to have come to equity with clean hands? How do citizens of a country feel when their leader is accused of a thousand and one wrongdoings? Some of the allegations against the President, Bola Tinubu are currently