She claims that making a comprehensive transition plan is essential if one wants to avoid using currency as the primary form of trade in “our culture.”
Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, a former minister of education, has been vocal about his extreme disapproval of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s naira swap programme (CBN).
Instead of concentrating on fiscal and monetary policy, the economic policy expert claims that the federal government is utilising the apex bank to target political “criminals it knows”
Ezekwesili expressed her views live on Sunday during a special election programme on Channels Television called The 2023 Verdict.
She noted that it was vital for the apex bank to consider “what are we solving for” while analysing the contentious CBN guideline that was purported to address vote-buying and illegally stored funds.
She claims that making a comprehensive transition plan is essential if one wants to avoid using currency as the primary form of trade in “our culture.”
But there is a second issue that we appear to be resolving, and it has now supplanted monetary policy. She said, “We are using the central bank to address the issue of criminality in our politics.
“That’s a goal, but is that a goal the central bank should be slamming into? There’s a problem with that because what has happened is that you are suffering as a result of criminals that you know. The government is also a participant in the illegal activity.
“If it wanted to acquire them in an open and honest manner, it would acquire them. Yet, what it has essentially done is upset the populace, including the market women who are destitute and the people who are already trying to make ends meet due to the criminality of our system.
The former vice president of the World Bank discussed how she would approach the policy and claimed that in light of recent technical advancements on the African continent, there was no justification for rolling it back.
She expressed scepticism about the CBN’s implementation of the strategy, pointing out that going cashless really just means encouraging people to use “less cash” rather than doing away with banknotes altogether.
“It does make sense that we wouldn’t be dumping bags of cash all over the place. Nonetheless, it is shocking to realise how badly the operational strategy for this policy was handled.
It was “a double whammy,” as the Americans would say, since it occurred so close to elections.
According to her, it is clear that the banks are not prepared for a full shift to a cashless world.
“Their system is completely broken because their technology hasn’t advanced to the point where they can genuinely respond properly. The main issue is what you believe you are resolving. There are quite obvious solutions to it, she said.
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“You’ve brought about this mess by combining everything. “It is evident that politicians have once more prioritised their own interests over that of the public,” Ezekwesili stated.
According to her assessment of the monetary policy of the Buhari administration, it has “got so thoroughly enmeshed in the politics of our country, which is such a disgrace.”
She acknowledged that there were political undertones in some aspects of monetary and fiscal policy, but she called it “very tragic” that what was “purely technical” had grown to “the degree of what we’ve seen under President Buhari.”
“Frankly speaking, I don’t even know whether there are still economists in the Central Bank of Nigeria,” she continued.
She criticised the current CBN for what she called a “serial failure” to consider policies and policy timeframes and charged that it had done so without questioning the policies in light of the available facts, which would have let data to drive decisions rather than irrational behaviour.
Weighting of the Scores and Obi
In contrast to his rivals from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, and the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, Ezekwesili has not been coy about her support for Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party.
She defended her decision by declaring, “There is no way I can vote for an Atiku or a Bola Tinubu. They neglect to check the box.
According to the former minister, character, competence, and capacity—or The Three C’s—are the foundations of her leadership framework.
Therefore, she explained, “when I use it and I weight the scores of each candidate around these three attributes that make up my framework of leadership — character, competence, and capacity — the person who comes out with a score higher than that of the others because you’re not compromising character for competence, or competence for character,”
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