A socio-political organisation, Social Rehabilitation Gruppe (SRG) has called for the immediate suspension of the Central Bank Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, over his reported mastermind of alleged disbursement of over N500 million new notes to aid the election of Labour Party governorship candidate, Mr. Gbadebo Vivour-Rhodes, in next Saturday’s election.
The body also asked President Muhammadu Buhari to launch immediate investigation into the accusation, with a view to tracking the movement of the said illicit funds, and bring all culprits to book.
In a statement on Monday, the Convener/ National Coordinator of the SRG, Dr. Marindoti Oludare, said, “It is now clear that the chief custodian of the country’s highest repository of public funds has betrayed the confidence needed to remain in office”.
Oludare noted, “For the past six months, the CBN under Emefiele has set the country on a needless road to precipice with his ill-motivated monetary policy intended to score political goals as against stabilising the economy.
“He asked Nigerians to bring their hard-earned money to bank vaults in exchange for the new naira notes, following which people’s money are trapped, causing untold hardship and grounding economies.”
He also expressed dismay that despite a Supreme Court judgement that the old N200, N500 and N1000 old notes remain legal tenders till December 31 this year, the apex bank’s governor had held the verdict in contempt through his refusal to issue a statement in compliance.
“What we are now hearing and reading are grave allegations that the Emefiele CBN had spirited huge sums in the neighbourhood of half a billion new naira notes to upstage the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, in Lagos, his political strong-hold, and sway victory in favour of Labour Party’s governorship candidate, Gbadebo Vivour-Rhodes.
“The cup of the CBN governor is full, as it were, and the federal government cannot continue to shield him against popular demand for his sack and being investigated over sundry accusations of odious financial deals.
“Never in the history of Nigeria has a CBN governor been this controversial and impossible. We, therefore, call on President Muhammadu Buhari to order Emefiele’s immediate suspension and launch an inquest into the accusation that he funnelled public funds to the tune of N500 million and that he engaged the services of a senior military officer to influence the result of next Saturday’s election in favour of the LP’s guber candidate,” he prodded.
In the same vein, the SRG boss accused Vivour-Rhodes of hate speech, by saying on a popular television programme that “I don’t think in Yoruba (language).”
“In the first place, how can somebody who wants to be governor over a Yoruba community lack any understanding of Yoruba language and still be gallivanting about such disability? He Trivialized Yoruba language, which is our heritage, calling it primordial sentiments and saying ‘I don’t think in Yoruba, I went to school in MIT, Nottingham, France’.
“He should stray to his highfalutin MIT, Nottingham and France to rule them. Canada is a multilingual country. The Premier of Quebec must speak French, so is the Premier of French-speaking parts of Belgium. You can’t be Prime Minister of England if you don’t speak English, or of India if you don’t speak Hindi.
“The last time a Nigerian leader didn’t speak a Nigerian language was during the colonial era. And we’re not about to degenerate to that.
“Above all, he has heaped a great insult on the Yoruba race through such hate speech; that thinking in Yoruba language is demeaning.
“We demand instant apology for his loose talks,” Oludare quipped.