The Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has said that the Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Godwin Emefiele, is not the cause of the country’s fiscal challenges.
Obi, speaking at the Chatham House in London on Monday, asserted that the weakness of the country’s fiscal space is the cause of its economic woes.
He said, “The CBN governor will maintain his independence. He will be respected. Again, it is not the problem of the person there. Central Bank has a role in monetary policy. Then, you have the fiscal space. It’s like you go to a football match and the person who is supposed to be playing a particular wing is no longer there. You find people playing various wings.
“The weakness of the fiscal space allowed the monetary space to take over… because of the weak governance structure, that is why we are able to do what we are doing.
“Replacing Godwin (Emefiele) and putting somebody else there, with that level of fiscal rascality, which is what is fuelling our inflation and our rate of exchange today… these are some of the things we need to cut. As long as the government continues on that fiscal rascality, our situation will occur.”
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria’s inflation rate stands at 21.34 per cent.
