At the Vanguard Economic Discourse in Lagos on Friday, former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Prof. Charles Soludo, and the immediate past Governor of Edo State, Mr. Adams Oshiomhole, made allegations and counter-allegations.
The development, which generated grumblings among the audience, occurred during a discussion session moderated by the founding Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Guaranty Trust Bank, Mr. Fola Adeola.
Soludo, who delivered the keynote speech on the topic, ‘The hard facts to rescue the Nigerian economy’, had earlier highlighted some of the failures of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government, particularly in terms of fiscal and monetary policies.
But in his remarks during the panel session, where the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, defended the government, Oshiomhole accused Soludo of wrongly allocating millions of dollars to two new generation banks shortly before the naira was devalued.
He said, “I got some intelligence from my comrades who worked in the system and we found out that the CBN under Soludo had just allocated couple of millions of dollars to two, as they were then known, new generation banks.
“And I asked Prof (Soludo), if you were going to devalue by Friday, why did you auction dollar at a lower rate on Thursday? I accused Soludo, I said you have enriched these two young men to the tune of N8bn, courtesy of your internal abuse.
“When the regulator behaved in this manner, then the Nigerian condition is much more serious than we can appreciate it. We need to deal with issues of attitude.”
However, this did not go down well with Soludo, as he said some people tend to change the subject when they did not have an answer to his earlier comment, a response that caused boisterous laughter and clapping by the audience.
At this point, the moderator told him he was running out of his time, but this was greeted with shouts of “No” from the audience.
“This debate has only begun. Adams made the point about exchange rate and exchange allocation to two banks. I want to say for the record that Adams Oshiomhole has lied. I didn’t say he misquoted anything; he has lied.” Soludo stated.
He said at the time, banks were bidding for forex two to three times weekly, and only the successful banks at each of the bids were allocated forex, adding that he was not even part of the bid as there was a committee for the purpose.
“Every bid produced a different exchange rate and there were different winners at every bid. We didn’t do devaluation as the case may be; we had the currency depreciating as the market determined day to day. With all due respect, I think if you (Oshiomole) don’t know what to say, sir, just don’t get into this kind of personal allegation,” he added.
Soludo had earlier said nothing much would be achieved with the 2017-2020 Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, which was released by the Federal Government last week.
“Whose plan is it? Ownership will determine whether the plan is just a public relations document or whether it will be implemented. To what extent is the plan consistent with the APC manifesto, which promised a conscious plan for post-oil economy and to restructure the country and devolve power to units with the best practices of federalism? Is this plan that plan?” the ex-CBN boss asked.
He described the envisaged 15 million jobs to be created under the plan as a “very nice wish.”
“The plan envisages to continue the practice of the past government of borrowing to finance recurrent expenditure. Up until 2018, recurrent expenditure will continue to exceed total revenue. The deficit will continue to exceed capital budget, meaning that capital expenditure will continue to be borrowed, as done by the last government. So, what has changed?” he queried.
Soludo said there were no projections for the trajectory of exchange rate or foreign reserves in the plan, stressing the need for a competitive real effective exchange rate.
