Emefiele shuns Reps

Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, refused to honour the summons by the House of Representatives concerning its recent policy on cash withdrawal limits.

Emefiele was meant to appear before the House on Tuesday owing to failure to honour the earlier summons by the lawmakers.

The House had earlier summoned the Governor to appear last Thursday, December 15 to explain the latest policy of the apex bank which among others.

However, he failed to appear before the lawmakers, on claims that he was away on an official assignment.

CBN’s Deputy Governor, Corporate Services, Edward Adamu, in a communication to the House, told the lawmakers that Emefiele was part of President Muhammadu Buhari’s entourage to the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit and as such, could not honour the summon.

Following his absence, the lawmakers in their resolutions asked the CBN Governor to appear before the House on Tuesday, December 20.

But at the resumption of plenary on Tuesday, Emefiele, again, through a letter signed by Adamu, said he would not be able to appear before the lawmakers because he is not yet back in the country.

Speaker Femi Gbajamiamila, after reading the communication said the invitation should be rescheduled for this Thursday and wondered why the CBN governor is out of the country for over two weeks “at this critical time”.

Abdulganiyu Olododo from Kwara raised a point of order saying, the CBN governor may yet not be available on Thursday.

In his ruling, Gbajabiamila said if the CBN governor is “unavoidably” unavailable on Thursday when he is expected, a “high-ranking deputy” should represent him.

“What is important is that this House gets a full proper briefing and I think it behoves the CBN governor in accordance with the law to brief this House. If for any reason it is verified that he is unavoidably out of the country on Thursday, he should ask his deputy governor or anyone who is well equipped to fully brief this House so that we do not carry this to next year”, Gbajabiamila said.

(Daily Trust)