By Joni Akpederi
Meffy 2023! , Meffy for President!
Me-what?
You are not the only nonplussed Nigerian. For Meffy is the laughter-inducing, sides-splitting nom de guerre of none other than current Central Bank Governor, Godwin Ifeanyichuckwu Emefiele, whom some political campaigners hope would ride out gallantly from his perch at the monetary authority headquarters in Abuja to the forbidding exclusivity of Aso Rock in 2023, just because they have bombarded the media with arcane campaign posters.
The whole shebang started out, rather innocuously, in February in the residential Surulere area of Lagos. A nondescript motley group of rabble-rousers who styled themselves The Green Alliance Movement coined the “Meffy 2023” battle cry decked out in “eponymously” emblazoned T-shirts.
They called on Nigerians to support their man for a litany of “good” the Central Bank boss has done for the country from the sublime to the downright ridiculous including, rather perversely, the creation and institutionalization of multiple exchange rate for Nigeria’s embattled Naira!
To give him his due, though, Emefiele has not said a word since the group urged him to “run, run, run! If he has done any running thus far, it must have been in any direction but towards Aso Rock. His studied silence has not done him much good. As the governor of what is arguably one of the most sensitive national institutions, he ought not to be connected, however, remotely, to partisan politics while in office.
Emefiele ought to have come out as plainly and openly as possible to dissociate himself from the circus built around him and the Central Bank from day 1, if he intends to continue as the apex monetary policy maker for the country and not a closet politician in the borrowed garb of a level-headed, apolitical technocrat.
Now, the odious flame has caught some wind and is flaring out of control especially in the geographical north of Nigeria where there is an ongoing apotheosis of the taciturn former top commercial banker as the divine saviour Nigeria has been pining for since the end of the civil war.
A daring group, the Unified Northern Nigeria Youth Forum, (UNNYF) reminiscent of the loathsome Youth Earnestly for Abacha (YEAA), disturbed by the apparent unconcern for the Meffy campaign in the rest of the country has made “a plaintive appeal for Southerners to back Meffy 2023 for Nigeria to coexist as one”
Its reason?: “Kano state’s industrial revolution, enabled by Meffy’s tenure at the Central Bank is only comparable to what obtained in the era of the great Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto”. They refer, of course, to some of the CBN’s interventions in the economy, notably the Anchor Borrowers Programme that pumped resources into agriculture. However, to attribute them to Emefiele who actually has just been carrying out the wishes of the current Administration is stretching thin Nigeria’s economic history’s narrative.
Today, observers of Nigeria’s political scene are aghast that the symbol of the nation’s monetary authority, which ought to be a rock-steady institution and counterweight to the turbulent political one. To remain true to its mandate and raison d’etre, Central Bank as an institution must come out in the open with an unequivocal statement to debunk the assumption in the public domain that it is surreptitiously funding the growing number of 2023 activists and propagandists. After all, it automatically issues public statements to address threats to the economy or its authority and ability to uphold financial stability.
Emefiele, should, indeed, run.
Flee politics. And he should announce his “flight schedule” in unmistakable terms to the whole world now.