Readers of BusinessDay have been calling by telephone and sending text and mail messages of support for the groundbreaking work the newspaper is doing to hold the powerful and those in authority accountable.
It followed the response by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the story published by BusinessDay in which the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG), the leading private sector think tank, called on President Muhammadu Buhari not to sign a new bill seeking to expand the powers of the government of the apex bank under the Bank and Other Financial Institutions Bill now awaiting presidential assent.
Rather than respond to the concerns raised, the CBN took to attacking the group and the newspaper for seeking to question the law.
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In one of the messages to BusinessDay, one reader said, “It will be interesting to see what the reaction from the president himself will be. The NESG letter was sent to him, not to Emefiele. Yet it is Emefiele that is taking the NESG’s pushback as a personal affront and lashing out blindly. Speaks great volumes…and it needs to be addressed frontally. CBN is not Godwin Emefiele’s personal estate. It is a public trust and must be open AT ALL TIMES to scrutiny, questioning and enlightenment. BusinessDay should not back down on asking a CBN that is becoming an alternative government, to be accountable.”
Another BusinessDay reader said, “The points raised by NESG in its letter about which the CBN has gone wild are so, so germane that a responsible leadership would have first deeply reflected on the issues and thereafter seek to meet with NESG team to articulate a joint response to those issues in the interest of the overall economy. I am very angry that this is what we get from an important organization like the CBN. Power indeed corrupts.”
Another reader of BusinessDay said, “I read this belligerent response from the central bank that failed to answer genuine questions raised by concerned and committed association of businesses and who are the real engine of economic growth in Nigeria.”
And one other reader wrote, saying, “I continue to be disappointed in this CBN with their display of infallibility while there are abundance of evidence to the contrary. The leadership of CBN seems to believe that all other Nigerians should go to hell once they have ingratiated themselves to the president and his handlers.”
According to another reader, “on a realistic basis, it is easy to see the moral hazard into which the FGN has put itself. The Government is betting heavily on CBN financing the N2.3 trillion Economic Sustainability Plan. Is this Bill payback to CBN, a case of he who pays the piper?”
“The CBN attack is the classic Trumpian method”, said another reader.
“You attack the messenger instead of responding to the substance of the message. You guys at BusinessDay should take solace and be strengthened in what happened with the FT and Wirecard. Wirecard has now collapsed in the face of all and those in authority in Germany who mocked the FT reports can now see for themselves. In the end, the truth will come out. Just stand in there, bullying and intimidation will work but for just only a little time.”
A senior economist with a development institution told BusinessDay he was shocked that a CBN filled with economists would issue a press statement responding to the matters raised by the NESG in such a manner.
“On the matter of ‘immunity’, even if the clause was already present in the current version of the Acts, the questions raised by NESG are valid.
“Should a regulator be immune from court processes?
“For instance, in the last week the Central Bank allegedly unilaterally froze the accounts of 38 firms. No court process. No explanation. Nothing. Should those firms not have the right to seek legal redress? The arbitrary CRR debits are another.
“On the various intervention programs, in the last decade the CBN has not published one proper academic style research on the impact of its programs. Not ONE. They have published no actual data either. The best way to demonstrate impact is with research and not press releases,” the economist said.
