The Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele said contrary to insinuations in the media space, they were not scheduled to attend the Investors’ Summit in Washington.
Both public officers never confirmed they would attend the Nigeria-US Investment Summit because of other engagements at the IMF that coincided with their official engagements.
Responding to the tirades thrown at them by the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi for their absence at the Summit held on Saturday, the Minister and CBN Governor maintained that at no time did they acknowledged readiness to be at the Forum.
The absence of Adeosun and Emefiele at the Summit, organised by the Embassy of Nigeria in the United States, drew ire from the Emir, who described the government officials’ non-appearance as a carefree attitude to investment opportunities.
However, amidst the controversy raised by Emir Sanusi’s remarks, the duo explained that the said Summit was not part of their schedule at the 2018 IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings.
“I attend the IMFC which is the highest decision-making body of the IMF. My primary role here as well as having the Nigerian hat on is to represent 23 African countries. So one of the things I have to do is to issue a statement on behalf of those 23, which includes most of the Anglophone countries: South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania,” Adeosun said on Sunday.
“So, my primary role here, as well as having a Nigerian hat on is to represent the 23 African countries. There has been some controversy about the scheduling I wasn’t due at any event.
“I was here as a governor of the IMF and member of IMFC to represent those 23 African countries and that schedule is what I must adhere to,” the Minister explained.
On his part, Emefiele said a plenary session of IMF finance ministers and Central Bank Governors was holding at the same time of the event, adding that the meetings in the IMF as well as the meeting at the World Bank takes pre-eminence over the investment summit.
The CBN Governor said he wasn’t consulted when the programme was organised, noting that; “Being the governor of the CBN, what takes pre-eminence is the meetings in the IMF as well as the meeting at the World Bank. I think it is important for me to say this when I arrived in Washington, the officials of the embassy spoke with me that there was going to be a US-Nigeria summit and I said will check my schedule because I wasn’t consulted when this summit was being organised.
“What one would have expected is that they would have checked my schedule and that of the Finance Minister if they thought that our presence at the summit was very necessary,” Emefiele stated.
In apologising to the investors, the CBN Governor said both himself and the Finance Minister are not irresponsible people, even as he noted that; “The US Nigeria summit was meant to hold between 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. whereas the World Bank development committee plenary session which is an assembly of ministers and governors of central banks was to hold between 2:15 p.m. and 5 p.m.
“There was no way how the minister of finance and myself could have been at those meetings.”
Reports quoted Emefiele as saying; “We are not irresponsible people and please we apologise to those investors who had gathered at the Nigerian embassy for the summit. My apologies but I know we also held some side meetings with some investors and there will always be lots of opportunities to meet with them.”
The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, had expressed misgivings over the absence of Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo and other Ministers at Washington Investment Meeting.
“We had a meeting today with investors. We came in, then they trooped into the Ambassador’s office to sit down, while investors were waiting,” he said.
“We had a list of people who were in town. The Vice President, some ministers, were in town, they haven’t come up.”
The Emir said government officials, who ought to have graced the event, were conspicuously absent, raising worries that Nigeria might lose investment opportunities by their absence.
Sanusi, a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) feels that the ministers’ absence could jeopardise Nigeria’s efforts to attract investment opportunities into the country.
– Channels TV
