Godwin Emefiele, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, has at last made his appearance before the House of Representatives after being called about the situation brought on by the redesign of some naira notes and the public’s exchange of old naira notes for new ones.
Emefiele is testifying before the House’s special committee on the crisis, which is being led by the majority leader, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa.
In response to Emefiele’s repeated refusals to respond to at least four summonses from the House, Speaker of the House Femi Gbajabiamila was to issue a warrant for his arrest.
Due to the CBN Governor’s refusal to appear for the final summons issued by the committee, the House decided against taking a break for the Thursday-starting presidential and National Assembly elections.
Insisting that the deadline violated the terms of Section 20(3) of the CBN Act, Gbajabiamila had threatened to order the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, to make an arrest and compel his appearance before the panel.
The Speaker partly said, “I have no choice now. On Tuesday when we resume, we will invoke the provisions of Section 89 of the Constitution .The President has been very clear. The President gave the approval based on what he knows and what he has been told.
“We also know the President to be a man of the people. He gave his approval based on what he had been told. But we are saying – what the motion is saying – is that after the President gave his approval, how does the money get to the people? The money is not getting to the people. That is what we sought to clarify and that is exactly what we are going to do.
“So, on Tuesday, this House will follow its procedure – the normal procedure – and invoke the provisions of Section 89 to compel the governor of the CBN and the directors.”
A meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, to discuss the contentious implementation of the policy was also requested by the Deputy Speaker, Ahmed Wase, and agreed to by the Speaker.
The House had insisted on Emefiele’s appearance even though the CBN on Sunday extended the deadline for the expiration of the old N1,000, N500, and N200 notes by 10 days, from January 31 to February 10, with the Deposit Money Banks (commercial banks) being allowed to accept the notes for an additional seven days.
Ado-Doguwa, in a statement titled ‘Old Naira Notes: House C’ttee Rejects CBN Extension, Says Position of Law Sacrosanct, Must Be Respected,’ insisted that the apex bank must comply with Sections 20(3), (4) and (5) of the CBN Act.
“Nigeria, as a developing economy and a nascent democracy, must respect the principles of the rule of law. And the House would go ahead to sign the arrest warrant to compel the CBN governor to appear before the ad hoc committee,” the Majority Leader stated.
However, Emefiele led the CBN leadership in their Tuesday appearance before the legislators.
Emefiele has ignored summonses from the House a total of four times in the last two months.
On December 22, 2022, the House interrogated Aisha Ahmad, the Deputy Governor for Financial System Stability at the Central Bank of Nigeria, about the most recent policy adopted by the top bank, which among other things places restrictions on cash withdrawals from Deposit Money Banks and other financial institutions.
Emefiele had been called by the House, but he did not show up for the two prior meetings with the legislators. The Committee of Governors would be led by Ahmad before the parliamentarians, not Emefiele, as the CBN had previously informed the House.
There was tension surrounding the January 31 deadline set by the CBN for the exchange of the old notes for the newly designed ones because Emefiele had also ignored two summonses from the House’s special committee to look into the lack of the new naira at the Deposit Money Banks, also known as commercial banks.
