Mefinomics, Obigotry and issues of forgiveness, By Kunle Awosiyan

Section 31 of the Central Bank of Nigeria Act 2007 has enabled Godwin Emefiele’s Anchors Borrowers programme to establish a linkage between the apex bank and small scale farmers to produce foods for us in commercial quantity.

Emefiele’s pyramid of rice has since disappeared, leaving us with stony local rice at expensive price, a bit lower than the “banned” imported rice. He is yet to ask for forgiveness of this sin.

Mefi’s idea of rice production is a scam and I remember making a mockery of some news media that published the story of rice pyramid as a big shame to journalism.

It was never investigated. Reporters slammed the stories on the pages of newspapers that the country had arrived and now the largest producer of rice in Africa. Where is the rice pls?

Yet we buy what we produce at very high price. A 50kg bag of rice is sold between N45,000 and N50,000 depending on the percentage of stones in it.

Mefi’s economics of FOREX is nothing to write home about. A dollar to Naira is over N700 in the parallel market. And at a time the Naira was falling like pack of cards from N400 to N500 to N700, Mefi was strategising on how to contest for president.

So insensitive and beclouded by an ambition that he came up with a sledge hammer when he introduced new “coloured” Naira notes and forced Nigerians to swap it with old notes in three months.

Some of us knew then that Mefi’s policy was a coup against democracy and crime against humanity. Funnily enough he had supporters who were not bothered as long as the draconian policy would truncate the ambition of a particular presidential candidate and help their own candidate.

However, Mefi’s type of bank economics became a blessing in a way as it was able to reveal men who were really on the side of the masses and those who would deploy every evil tactic to destroy the ruling All Progressives Congress.

Just as the Biblical Esther put it, ” I will go in the front of the king to protest the suffering of my people, if I die, I die.” Bola Tinubu rose and challenged President Muhammadu Buhari’s Mefinomics monetary policy.

“If I lose, I lose, you cannot subject the masses to suffering because of me” he lamented.

His supporters, the governors echoed it to the Supreme Court where Mefi was ordered to suspend the archaic Naira swapping rules. Did he? Our man waited until he received a dirty slap from the presidency that he was not supposed to wait for the president before he would obey court order.

Since then, Mefi had gone under; his new notes that should be running concurrently with the old notes had disappeared from circulation. His is another case of used and dumped. His clans had always been used to run this kind of errand anytime the country is at crossroads.

Most adults still have vivid memory of a “Kanu” who was used by late despotic ruler, Sani Abacha for Association for Better Nigeria to kill the June 12 agitation.

We remember one Chukwumerije and Arthur Nzeribe and one Peter Obi who would later become a governor in Anambra State and a presidential candidate in 2023 general election.

These same set of clans of Mefi were instruments in the hands of the military against democracy in the early 90s. I’m not on this page to castigate a particular people but to remind them of the past and why this must stop.

Of course there was a man in the southwest who kicked against Abacha regime and was imprisoned like many other NADECO chieftains but when he was told that the rulership would be given to him, he changed voice and aligned with enemies of democracy.

He has always spoken against clannishness and ethnicity but ahead of the 2023 election, he kept mute even when his candidate, Peter Obi of Labour Party began to sell the ethnic and religious ideology to win an election.

Thanks to the viral audio that exposed the religious bigotry between Obi and Bishop of the Winners Chapel, David Oyedepo.

Thanks to the votes from the southeast that went along ethnic line. Obi scored over 90 per cent in all the southeast states, including places where there was no single Labour Party councillor.

Thanks to Lagos votes that came through ethnic and religious prejudices and exposed the plot of politicians to have their ways along ethnic and religious lines. And thanks to Lagosians who later preferred performance to ethnicity and religiosity at the governorship poll.

They call it “Obidients”, I call it Obigotry because it is an idea that is targeted at dividing us along ethnic and religious lines. It is an idea that sells victim cards to gain ethnic and religious sympathy from many youth who know nothing about history.

They have been used to create disharmony among different ethnic groups by their use of uncouth words and abusive languages across social media platforms.

Some adults among them are emotionally and ethnically attached to their clans and would not see anything bad in Mefi’s killer policy.

They must join in apologising and ask Nigerians to forgive them in aiding and abetting bad laws.

It is not only President Muhammadu Buhari that has offended Nigeria in a way. Buhari is only being conscientious to have asked for forgiveness if at all he had offended Nigerians.

There are wicked subordinates who capitalised on the shortcomings of the president to navigate their personal interests, Mefi is one of them.

There are many politicians who capitalised on our ethnic and religious differences to sell their own self ideology, Obi is one of them.

They both sold to us bad policy and bad politics respectively. They must ask for the forgiveness of their sins against humanity.