CBN Withdrawal Limits Retaliatory Against Political Class

The Governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Fintiri, has accused the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, of targeting the political class with the cash withdrawal limit policy unveiled by the apex bank on Tuesday.

Controversies have continued to trail the planned policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria to limit daily cash withdrawal for individuals to N20,000 daily and N100,000 and N500,000 per week for individuals and corporate bodies respectively.

But Governor Fintiri, who was reacting to the new CBN policy during a campaign engagement in Kala’a, Hong Local Government Area, said it was evident that the policy by Emefiele was targeted at the political class.

He said the policy coming shortly after Emefiele’s uneventful foray into politics which had been prematurely truncated, could only have been retaliatory giving that the policy was likely to worsen poverty among the citizens.

He said, “What is breeding poverty? Economic policies. Look at the one that is about to be implemented by the Central Bank which would further throw the country into poverty. Nobody is saying the economy shouldn’t be cashless. Take time and do it systematically. We shouldn’t do it as if some people wanted to be politicians and they were denied the opportunity, then they use their office to punish the politicians.”

Fintiri who cautioned against such policies tasked holders of key national institutions to act in the overall national interest.

The governor also reiterated his call for true federalism. Fintiri had on Thursday, called on the President Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to amend the constitution to allow for a true federation where states are allowed to take full control of revenues and by so doing assure autonomy for the third tier of government.

He said, “If we are talking about governors diverting funds, we expect the government to correct the anomaly by sponsoring amendment to the Nigerian constitution to separate the office of the accountant general of the federation from the accountant general of the federal government so that funds belonging to local government and the state would not also be converted by the federal government, because what the governors’ are being accused of, the Federal Government can equally be accused of doing same ten times over.”

He maintained that there needs to be restructuring of the current system that would allow autonomy to the states and local government, adding that “the way the system is couched there’s no autonomy even for the states nor for the local governments and nobody sees the states as sub-national of the federation because everything is being controlled at the centre.”