A former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Dr Obadiah Mailafia, has criticised the directive by President Muhammadu Buhari, to the CBN to stop allocation of foreign exchange for food importation.
He faulted the claims that the nation was self-sufficient in food. Mailafia noted that the policy was not well thought out, stressing that it would encourage all forms of illegal activities, including smuggling.
Speaking on Channels Television Sunrise programme on Thursday, the development economist said the decision of the CBN to implement the directive showed that it had been captured politically.
The former presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress in the 2019 general elections also stated that the apex bank had lost its professionalism and autonomy hence its willingness to pander to the whims of the political class.
He said, “I wish there was any thinking here. There has been no thinking whatsoever. You can’t run policy on a whim; you run policy based on technical and scientific understanding of the situation at hand.
Somebody just woke up one morning and issued a diktat to the CBN. I feel disappointed; we don’t have an independent CBN anymore.
“There has been a capture of CBN, politically. It has no autonomy anymore; it is just an appendage of some people who are using it for whatever purpose that they want.”
Mailafia argued that the subservience of the CBN was reminiscent of the military era when soldiers looted the public treasury with impunity, describing the Presidential directive to the CBN as backward thinking.
Source: Punch Newspaper
