Politics
2023: How Emefiele’s Supporters Are Hitting Back
By GWG Political Editor
Given his rising profile in the 2023 political contest even without making a declaration, it is not surprising that Mr Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN would be the butt of some established political interests who using their supporters have assailed the apex banker.
However, a group of supporters aligned to Emefiele have now come out to defend and rubbish his traducers.
Ahmed Ja’Usman Tijani, Co-ordinator, Nigerian Patriotic Quest, in defending Emefiele debunked insinuations that the CBN governor is not qualified for the position and other critical attacks which he said were aimed at keeping the apex banker from the political arena.
“This statement is in response to the upsurge of negative articles in the media with the intention of discouraging our candidate and demonising his supporters. Most of these contributions are an amalgam of baseless insinuations and innuendos against Godwin Emefiele,” Tijani said in a statement made available to GreenWhiteGreen GWG.
He said:
“Perhaps, for the further enlightenment of the naysayers, that is, if they have not been blinkered by their biases against our candidate; the upswell of support for Emefiele are borne out of his solid achievements in his previous professional engagements and also as the CBN Governor.
Never in the history of central banking in Nigeria have we had a CBN Governor who took on frontally the various challenges of the Nigerian economy: cutting across agriculture, industries, forex management, monetary policies, fighting the COVID 19 pandemic etcetera.
In the area of boosting food security, we witnessed well thought out policies aimed at increasing access to funding by the generality of our farmers, who hitherto were locked out from the major financial institutions.
The flagship of these policies is the Anchor Borrowers Programme, which has noticeably boosted local output in rice, sugar, wheat, cotton, cassava, maize etcetera, and helped in conserving our scarce foreign exchange.
In the area of employment generation, the investments in agriculture and industries have heavily impacted opportunities for direct and indirect employment within the economy running into millions of jobs.
The economic importance of these interventions are further highlighted by the sub 10% interest rates charged across board, coupled with requisite moratoria on repayments.
Under Godwin Emefiele, despite the diverse unforseen economic shocks that bedeviled the economy: ranging from the drastic drop in the price of crude oil for years, the Covid 19 pandemic and consequent economic lockdown; the CBN deftly managed the nation’s balance of payments, boosted forex inflows and exponentially increased the forex reserves overtime with various incentives to encourage diaspora and export proceed remittances.
These are the qualities that have inspired a large number of people and organisations to selflessly deploy their own resources in advocating for the candidacy of Emefiele as a suitable presidential candidate come 2023 elections.
We believe, that at this time of great economic challenges in the life of our nation, there is no better candidate than Emefiele, to steer the economic ship of this nation to calmer waters. He has seen it all and battled with very intimidating economic hurdles in the past seven years or so, with outstanding equanimity and desterity.
Emefiele Supporters On His Achievements
Inspite of these qualities and achievements, some analysts in the media are fixated with justifying why Emefiele should not run.
What are they afraid of? Or could it be a case of the hand of Esau and the voice of Jacob? Only time will tell.
Why should they cherry pick who to run down amongst the gamut of potential/declared presidential candidates parading the national space today?
The illogical arguments against the candidacy of Godwin Emefiele has reinvigorated our campaign for him to be part of the answer to the presidential question come 2023.
In order to give their postulations some semblance of objectivity and authority, some of the writers sometimes claim that their findings are based on “enquiries in government and banking circles.”
These claims are mostly unsubstantiated and, we dare say, products of their fertile imaginations.
Until those who have the advantage of access to organs of mass communication respect the wishes and desires of ordinary Nigerians, then the Nigeria of our dreams may become more difficult or impossible to attain.
Some contributors try to be clever by half by highlighting some of Emefiele’s indisputable achievements, possibly as a way of hoodwinking the unwary.
However, we are not deceived by this, as the sole purpose of their vituperations is to cast apersions and even criminalise the proponents of Godwin Ifeanyichukwu Emefiele’s candidacy in the 2023 presidential elections.
We will like to declare at this point, that everyone have the right to support and encourage any qualified Nigerian to contest for any political position.
Therefore, the naysayers of this world and their groups can never deny us this constitutional privilege. They are free to support and highlight the qualities of their choice candidates; but to undermine our right to choose who to support will not be condoned.
We, the supporters of Godwin Ifeanyichukwu Emefiele will continue to campaign and encourage him to step into the ring and use his wealth of experience and knowledge to chart a new course of peace and prosperity for our beloved nation, Nigeria.
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