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Northern youth group splits over Emefiele

By Azimazi Momoh Jimoh, Abuja
17 September 2021   |   4:05 am
An umbrella body for youth organisations in the North has been hit by serious internal crisis over the performance of the Central Bank Governor (CBN), Godwin Emefiele.

Godwin Emefiele PHOTO: Twitter/CBN

An umbrella body for youth organisations in the North has been hit by serious internal crisis over the performance of the Central Bank Governor (CBN), Godwin Emefiele.

The youths, who were formerly together as Arewa Youths Forum (AYF), were yesterday locked in verbal war in Abuja over conflicting verdicts regarding the performance of the CBN governor.

Former speaker of the forum, Salihu Danlami, was sacked yesterday for leading some members to pass vote of no confidence in Emefiele.

In a press conference, the new speaker, Tahir Azare, alleged that Danlami used the forum’s name to cast aspersion on the CBN’s economic policies.

Danlami, on Wednesday, issued a statement asking Emefiele to resign for someone else to arrest the dwindling economy. He had said: “We of the Arewa Youths Assembly ask Mr. Emefiele to resign his post as CBN governor. This is necessary because every point raised against Emefiele is factual and verifiable.”

Alleging that some of the group’s leaders were being used to do damage control for Emefiele, he added: “Can any sane person deny the current economic realities where our foreign exchange keeps falling daily?”

Danlami noted that the naira was N170 to the dollar before Emefiele’s emergence as governor of CBN. “But today, due to his weak policies, it is N550, and still counting, against a dollar.”

But at yesterday’s press briefing, Azare alleged: “Despite the resolution of the leadership of the assembly not to use the platform for devious political plots, Danlami went ahead to use the name of the assembly to threaten national security and the economy of the country.

“We had asked ourselves, which Emefiele is Danlami talking about? Is it the CBN governor who deployed over N756 billion to 3.7 million farmers cultivating over 4.6 million hectares of farmland under the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP)? Or was it the same man who provided N23 billion in relief materials to households affected by COVID-19 and set up 39 isolation centres across Nigeria?

“ We advised him and his patrons to look elsewhere for a new target, as Emefiele was a wrong target because he is not the cause of their poverty of ideas and take their fake news of Emefiele’s presidential ambition somewhere else.”

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