ECONOMY: Northern youths give Emefiele 21 day ultimatum to resign

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele has been given the matching order to rescue the nation’s economy in 21 days or resign.

The Northern Youth Council of Nigeria, NYCN, through its President, Comrade Isah Abubakar, gave the ultimatum in a statement on Wednesday, insisting that something must be done to put the economy back on the right track.

The group, while calling on President Buhari to look for people with the right technical knowledge to help him fix the economy before it gets too late, insisted that though they are not economists, they know that the economy is in shambles.

According to Abubakar, the lack of any economy and financial direction has led to increase in the rate of poverty in recent times from 60 per cent to 75 per cent with attendant consequences that have increased number of impoverished Nigerians to about 120 million.

The statement partly read: “After watching with keen interest the present economic hardship in the country, we are saying no thanks to CBN Governor who has not been able to come up with any plan that can take us out of the wood as head of our financial body.

We at NYCN while supporting the administration of President Mohammadu Buhari are saying we are not happy with his economy team hence the need to look inward for better hands.

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“We now pay as high as about N500 to a dollar. This has brought serious hunger and hardship on our people because most of what we eat are imported and are been affected by high foreign exchange. Inflation has increased from 7 percent in 2013 to 17 percent in qtr 4 of 2015 and qtr 3 of 2016 which made both the CBN Governor and Finance Minister, Funke Adeosun agreed to the fact that economy is in trouble.

“Unemployment is another problem as it has soared to 24 percent at a period when millions of beverages, tobacco, banks and hospitality sector workers have been added to already saturated Labour market. Small and medium scale enterprises that were coming up are folding up as they can not bear the exchange rate that has sky rocketed beyond their reach.

“This has shown total failure of the CBN governor and he has proved his total incompetence to manage Nigeria economy. It is to this regard we demand for his resignation as the CBN governor and urged Mr President to appoint a competent hand not minding where he comes from, his ethnicity, or religion background. We only need someone with sound economics nitty-gritty who can manage our delicate economy. This is because we demand nothing but a better Nigeria.

“Failure of the CBN governor to voluntarily resign or put the economy in the right track within the 21-day of this ultimatum, NYCN will be forced to organize and mobilize mass protests in front of the CBN headquarters in Abuja”, the statement added.

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