Senator Ali Ndume has expressed his disapproval of the proposed relocation of certain departments of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from Abuja to Lagos.
Despite the current plan, the senator from Borno South remains confident that President Bola Tinubu’s administration will overturn this decision.
There has been strong resistance to the planned move, with the Arewa Consultative Forum, a socio-political group in northern Nigeria, and Senators of northern extraction kicking against the move.
He said “The regulators of the financial institutions are in Abuja. You want to move because you say Lagos is the commercial capital. This is one of the mistakes and I am sure Mr President will reverse it because it does not work,”
Senator Ndume dismissed the proponents’ argument for the relocation, particularly emphasizing the claim that more commercial activities in Lagos justified the move. He drew a parallel by questioning why oil exploration companies did not relocate their activities to the oil-producing Niger Delta region.
He maintained that the planned relocation was ill-advised, saying, “It does not work that way. But I am very sure that Mr President will look at this. He is a nationalist and not just a Lagos boy.”
The ACF had earlier argued that the CBN’s decision rather than being a normal administrative action to fix some logistics problem is a disturbing pattern of antagonistic actions often taken by certain Federal Government agencies against the interests of the north and other parts of the country noting that northerners will be affected by the spontaneous exercise.