Prominent civil rights advocacy group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has opposed the plan by the new Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr. Olayemi Cardoso, to transfer some departments of the banking chief regulator to Lagos. The rights group said Sunday in a media statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, that the decision which is political, directly smacks of and is reminiscent of the notoriously petty politics that go on in some states of the federation whereby governors newly elected and sworn-in, rapidly move state universities to their local government areas of nativity.

Besides, HURIWA said it makes no logical sense to give a reason of attempting to decongest the Abuja headquarters of the CBN as a reason for transferring departments of the CBN to Lagos when that same reason of over-congestion of the entire Lagos State was the fundamental reason why the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, was set up in the first place by law which is subsisting and binding on all persons and authorities as Nigeria’s Federal capital and seat of government.

The rights group said the decision by the new CBN chief is tantamount to disrespecting section 298 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 (as amended) which states unambiguously that the Federal capital territory of Abuja SHALLbe the capital of the Federation and seat of government of the Federation.

HURIWA argued that the enabling Act that set up the CBN prescribe the legal functions to include that it is the official Banker of the government of the Federation which emphatically means that the CBN must be domiciled wherever the seat of government is located by law which for now is Abuja the federal capital Territory. The CBN is to issue legal tender currency in Nigeria; maintain external reserves to safeguard the international value of the legal tender currency; promote a sound financial system in Nigeria; and. Act as Banker and provide economic and financial advice to the Federal Government.

HURIWA said it is a fallacy to say that some departments must be domiciled in Lagos because of the puerile and laughable reason that most banks have their headquarters in Lagos as if the CBN is subservient or is supposed to follow the operational plans of commercial banks.

HURIWA accused Cardoso of executing ethnic agenda by attempting to move strategic departments of the CBN to his state of origin which is Lagos just as the group wondered if erstwhilegovernor of CBN for almost a decade, Mr. Emefiele had moved some departments to Asaba, the Delta State capital which is his state of origin whether the Lagos born CBN governor will still have other departments to move to Lagos as is being contemplated. HURIWA urged the CBN chief executive to perish that politically toxic plot because that will be very a dangerous precedent meaning that if a Kano State born person becomes Governor of CBN some day, he or she could also move some departments of the CBN to Kano.

“We think Mr. Cardoso, the Lagos man may be seeing his designation as governor just like that of elected political office of a governor which is why he is trying to experiment with the unethical practice of some governors in some states who upon getting inaugurated, decide in a thoughtless and whimsical manner to relocate long established state owned universities from where they were originally located to their own side of the state as if to say the state is their personal property.

“The decision or plot to relocate departments of CBN to Lagos is politically motivated and must never be allowed to happen or else we will wake up one morning to hear that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has moved the state house back to Lagos which by law stopped being the Federal capital territory the moment Abuja became the FCT by the General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida military regime in the early 1990s,” HURIWA said.

It also faulted the plan to relocate the departments to Lagos because the headquarters of Banks are in Lagos when in actual facts those commercial banks should’ve been asked to set up their corporate or administrative offices in Abuja by virtue of the fact that Abuja by law is the FCT of Nigeria.

The rights group said the new hierarchy of the CBN by planning to move departments of the bank to Lagos is dragging the hand of the clock backwards in Nigeria. If the CBN new head argues that the Abuja headquarters is congested, it therefore means that all kinds of persons not needed to contribute anything to the running of CBN when in the first place they were simply employed because politicians imposed them on the CBN just as the Rights group argues that the CBN building in Lagos is obviously too tiny to accommodate those staff who might be taken to an over congested Lagos state.

“This ethnic agenda by the Lagos born CBN Governor must be aborted and the CBN is a banking regulator of all of Nigeria and not for banks domiciled in Lagos only,” according to HURIWA.