A bill proposing to bar the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Governor, and his Directors from participating in politics while still in office has scaled second reading in the House of Reps. The bill if scaled through will criminalize the Governor of CBN and his Directors from participating in politics while still holding their office. The Bill is set to alter the CBN Act 2007 and is being sponsored by Sada Soli, a lawmaker from Kastina state. The section stipulates when the CBN Governor and his Directors are supposed to exit the office.
The bill if amended will bar the CBN Governor from becoming a member of any political party, or participating in any form of partisan politics while still in office.
The lawmaker who sponsored the bill explained that the bill was not intended to target any individual but to sanitize the system and to cure the “shock the Act has suffered when it was tested”.
“This amendment is no prejudice to anybody because the act was tested and it was found to be weak,” he said.
According to Soli, Nigeria needs to strengthen its law surrounding the CBN being the lender of last resort in the country’s financial institution and to also bring sanity into the law it suffered while being interpreted in the court the last time.
He said, “These changes will enable any person who is interested in partisan politics to cease as the governor of the central bank and this will give more honor to the position of the CBN governor, and deputy governor.”
During the recently concluded All Progressive Congress, APC, and Presidential primary election, some interest group allegedly procured a nomination form for the CBN governor that cost about N100million to partake in the presidential primaries while keeping his office as the CBN governor.
The move was greeted with resistance from some civil society groups and individuals who argued that how can someone who holds a sensitive office like that of the CBN belongs to a political party in a country like Nigeria with a multi-party system.
Some of the interest groups, like Governor Akeredolu and other CSOs, demanded that the CBN must first resign his position as CBN Governor if he wished to pursue ambition in politics.
While the protest against his ambition was still on, Emifele approached the High Court in Abuja demanding that he should be declared eligible to vie for the presidency in the 2023 general election.
Meanwhile, after the primary elections were over, Emifele withdrew the case.