Nigerian central bank Governor Godwin Emefiele denied that he has decided to enter the race to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari.
Ruling party spokesman Joseph Morka on Friday said Emefiele had acquired a form, permitting him to compete to become the All Progressive Congress’s presidential candidate. In a series of tweets on Saturday, however, the central banker said this was done on his behalf and that he has not yet made a decision about whether to try to succeed Buhari, who can’t run again after serving two terms.
“This is a serious decision that requires God’s divine intervention: in the next few days The Almighty will so direct,” he said on Twitter.
The last day to acquire and submit the APC’s presidential nomination forms, which require a registration fee of 100 million naira ($240,000), is May 11. At least 17 candidates have so far paid for the forms of about 30 aspirants who have indicated an interest in running, according to local media reports.
The primaries to choose the nominee are scheduled to take place from May 30 to June 1 ahead of nationwide elections in February next year. While a new electoral law signed by Buhari in February requires all presidential appointees to resign from other roles before the primaries, it isn’t clear if Emefiele will do so as the law is being challenged in court.
He still may be required to resign if he wins the ruling party’s ticket as the law establishing the central bank in Africa’s largest economy requires governors to devote the “whole of their time to the service of the Bank while holding office.”
The governor of Nigeria’s southwest Ondo state, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, called on Emefiele to step down after the initial news that he would run. Citing the nation’s constitution and the central bank law, Akeredolu, a lawyer, advised the central banker “to leave the office immediately, for him to pursue his interest” in a statement posted on Twitter.
Heavyweight candidates
Emefiele, 60, could join field that includes political heavyweights such as Bola Tinubu, the APC’s national leader and former governor of Lagos state, and Yemi Osinbajo, who has served as Buhari’s vice president since 2015.
As governor, Emefiele, a former executive at Zenith Bank, has focused on keeping the naira stable against the dollar. He has maintained multiple exchange rates despite entreaties from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to scrap the practice.
The bank’s efforts to maintain Nigeria’s foreign-exchange reserves has led to dollar shortages for businesses trying to pay foreign suppliers and lenders and long waits for portfolio investors trying to repatriate funds and exit the country. Still, the local currency has lost more than half its value since 2015 after three devaluations and contractions in the economy.
In a bid to diversify the economy from its dependence on crude exports, Emefiele introduced lending programs for rice, cotton and oil-palm farmers, as well as nomadic cattle herdsman and the Nigerian film industry Nollywood. His supporters argue that the central bank’s interventions helped output recover faster from two recessions and boosted domestic food production.
