By Halimah Olamide
A member of the senate, Ali Ndume, has warned President Bola Tinubu of the political consequences of the movement of some departments in the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria to Lagos.
Ndume, while featuring in a live television interview on Channels TV, said those advising Tinubu assume they under Nigeria beyond Lagos. An angry Ndume said because they are “Lagos Boys,” they want to use everything about Lagos to judge the whole country adding that the decision will injure the president politically.
“Some of them think that they know better than everybody. But they don’t know anything. When you don’t know Nigeria, you only know Lagos, then you start doing things as if Nigeria is Lagos. Lagos is in Nigeria. That’s a wrong decision.
“We will not accept it. Besides, you know, they are not doing any favour to Mr. President, because this will have political consequence. Yes. I’m telling you this.
“And these guys who are just sitting down there, trying to hang on to Mr. President will not be there to amend the political mistakes or even to correct it because they don’t know anybody.
“They only know their offices. And they only know that they have brains,” he said. He said the members of the cartel do not know how Nigeria works and will not be able to help the president when the repercussions come.
“All these Lagos boys that are thinking that Lagos is Nigeria are just misinforming or advising the president wrongly. The regulators or the financial institutions are supposed to be in Abuja.
“Now, you want them to move because you say Lagos is the commercial capital. This is one of the mistakes.
“And I’m sure the president will reverse it, because it doesn’t work. You can’t have two capitals or is the CBN governor going to be operating from Lagos and headquarters of the CBN is in Lagos?
“Do you say that because majority of our oil is extracted from South-south, you take the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) to the South-south or because Nigeria’s agricultural produce are more in the north, you take the Ministry of Agriculture to anywhere in the north.
“It doesn’t work that way. And that is one of the problems that is cropping up, but I’m very sure, I’m very confident that Mr. president will look at this because he’s a nationalist, not just a Lagos man,”
“This is a decision that is not well thought out. And I think the president will reverse it. I’m confident that. And if that does not happen, of course, this is democracy and we know what to do,” he stated