Number one bestselling author and former presidential aide, pastor Reno Omokri has said that former president Goodluck Jonathan handed a financially viable to Ex-president Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. According to him,

Nigeria was on a sound financial footing when Jonathan handed over to Buhari.

Pastor Omokri said this in a statement on Sunday via his X handle. He was responding to a statement credited to the former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Kingsley Moghalu. According to the statement, Moghalu called out on ex-president Jonathan to give an explanation to the collapse of the CBN under the embattled governor, Godwin Emefiele and the impact on Nigeria’s economy.

However, in his response, Pastor Omokri said Jonathan should be praised for handing over a financially viable Nigeria “with a debt-to-GDP ratio of roughly 19%….” He said instead attacking former president Jonathan, that Moghalu and every Nigerian should praise him.

His statement reads thus:

“I am not sure Mr. Kingsley Moghalu is being charitable by attacking Godwin Emefiele and, in the same breath, complaining about a media trial. His approach is a bit puzzling. You attack those engaging in a media trial and then add, most bizarrely, to the media trial. What is his agenda? What does he aim to achieve?

Mr. Moghalu may or may not be right that Emefiele is the “WORST and MOST damaging Central Bank Governor in Nigeria’s history- incompetent and ill-prepared for the role.”

However, it is hypocritical to complain about a media trial and then proceed to give a media judgment against the man you are defending against a media trial. Again, what is Moghalau’s argument? Where does he stand?

I have deliberately refused to commend or condemn Mr. Emefiele since his ordeal. A Senator sent me the report by Mr. Jim Obazee of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria. I read it. It makes for interesting reading. But it would be shallow of me to render a judgment, whether in the media or privately, as this matter is before the courts.

However, Mr. Kingsley Moghalu’s puzzling behaviour does not stop there. He goes on to incredibly indict former President Jonathan. He asks him to give explanations “for the collapse of Nigeria’s central bank under Emefiele and the subsequent trauma to Nigeria’s economy.”

What sort of grandstanding is this?

In the Obazee report, the alleged wrongdoings of Mr. Emefiele were not carried out under President Jonathan, who courageously abided by the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2007. And because of his discipline, at the time he handed over to General Buhari on May 29, 2015, Nigeria was on a sound financial footing, with a debt-to-GDP ratio of roughly 19%, before 2013, which shrank to 12% after Nigeria’s GDP rebasing of 2014, and a budget deficit of under 5%, with an average GDP growth rate of over 6% for the five years he was in office.

What explanation does Mr. Jonathan have to give besides the above, which calls for praise?

And even if his claims are true, which they are not, how does Kingsley Moghalu absolve himself, seeing as he was also a Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria between 2009 and 2014?

Yes, he may have been disappointed that former President Jonathan did not reappoint him as Deputy Governor after his term expired in 2014 or even appoint him as the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, as he hoped. But that does not mean he should throw away proper jurisprudence and begin to assume that the allegations against Emefiele are proven and to blame President Jonathan rather than focus his acid pen on the Buhari era, during which these malfeasances were alleged to have occurred.

Kingsley Moghalu was at the CBN between 2009 and 2014, and his era there was not without its controversies. Nevertheless, on March 18, 2014, Mr. Moghalu said about President Jonathan to the Independent of London as follows:

“The president of Nigeria and the government of Nigeria have never in my knowledge interfered with the function of the central bank. And therefore I think we need to give them credit for respecting [its] independence.”

Nine years later, he is now asking the man, who by his own admission gave the CBN its complete independence, to give account for Emefiele’s alleged malfeasances, which occurred AFTER he left office.

The logic is neither analytical nor deductive. No wonder Moghalu was not reappointed or promoted!

Reno Omokri
 
Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #TableShaker. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Hodophile. Hollywood Magazine Humanitarian of the Year, 2019. Business Insider Influencer of the Year 2022.”