- Says new Act is Emefiele’s document, should be probed
BY MAYOWA SAMUEL
The Chairman, Board of Directors, Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, AbdulHakeem Mobolaji Abdullateef, has raised the alarm over what he described as monumental fraud that had been perpetrated through the new act of the NDIC.
He said the new act was fraudulently passed 48 hours before former President Muhammadu Buhari handed over power and that a cabal within the system designed it that way to have their way, noting that the NDIC currently “stinks” as a result of deep-rooted corruption.
Abdullateef wept as he disclosed this in a Facebook post on Monday, and called on President Bola Tinubu to carry out a thorough investigation into his allegations.
According to him, with the new act, the hands of the President have been allegedly tied as only the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria can be the Executive or Managing Director of the NDIC, contrary to the free hand given to the President in the former act to appoint any competent person to head the board.
The NDIC Chairman stated, “It will shock you to know that the new act taken to Buhari was different from the votes and proceedings of that of the National Assembly that passed it.
“They (cabal) know that lawmakers will oppose it if they introduce the section on the floor. So they hid it and then included it in the one taken to the former president for assent.
“While waiting for Buhari’s confirmation after our appointment, they quickly introduced a new bill, which will truncate everything we wanted to do.
“With the new act, they have tied the hands of the President that only the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) can be the Executive or Managing Director of the NDIC contrary to the free hand given to the President in the former act to appoint any competent person to head the board.
“I understand they are trying to doctor this act now but I call on the clerk of the NASS not to allow them to put his name in mess.
“The former act allows the six geo political zones to be represented in the board but now they have removed that in the new act and made the permanent secretary of the ministry of finance head of the board.
“When I visited the permanent secretary on this, he told me he told them several times not to make him the head because of his busy schedule. They know this and still went ahead so they can do all the mess they want to do.”
He said with this action, the cabal had killed the career progression of 1,600 Nigerians, noting that NDIC would no longer be able to protect depositors.
“I have thousands of petitions on my table by Nigerians who have found it difficult to claim their rights because of the deliberate frustrating processes. They are denying Nigerians of several trillions of naira.
“The former law says NDIC is free to investigate the banks, but now, the new act, which is Godwin Emefiele’s document, says you can only do that with the approval of the CBN,” he alleged.
He urged President Tinubu not to act on the new NDIC Act because it contains 35 sections allegedly smuggled in by corruption engineers.
He said, “Section 7 takes away the rights and representatives of the ministry of finance and replaced it with two directors of the CBN. It should be returned to the NASS after proclamation for proper debate.
“The President should probe why what is passed is fundamentally different from what was assented, what happened in the period in between.”
Abdullateef called for the support of the present administration to reform governance and fight corruption in the system.
“Many of the microfinance banks that were said to have failed are liquid and viable and wanted to assist the masses. But out of the fraud of this cabal, they closed down the banks and inserted sections to take over the funds and properties,” he claimed.
