Political Parties Distrust Emefiele, Reject CBN’s Custody Of BVAS For 2023 Election

The Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele’s venture into partisan politics against provisions of the Central Bank Act has prompted political parties to vote against keeping sensitive electoral materials at the country’s apex bank.

At a meeting on Wednesday with the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the political parties unanimously kicked against keeping the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) with the CBN.

THE WHISTLER reports that the political parties’ decision would be seen as a pass of no-confidence vote on Emefiele over his failed attempt to contest in the 2023 presidential election.

Emefiele had drawn the ire of Nigerians after what started as a rumour turned out to be true that the CBN governor was seeking to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023. He had a lawsuit at the Federal High Court, Abuja, seeking an order directing INEC and the Attorney-General of the Federation not to stop him from running for president.

This violation of the CBN Act apparently informed the decision of the country’s 18 political parties to kick against keeping the BVAS at the central bank.

Festus Okoye, INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman of Information and Voter Education Committee, disclosed details of the political parties’ meeting with the commission.

Okoye spoke during an interview on News Central TV which was monitored by THE WHISTLER on Thursday.

He said, “We discussed the issue of logistics around the movement of personnel and election materials and the INEC chairman did offer two basic options on moving forward.

“There was an option he called the hybrid option and the option he called the standalone option. The hybrid option is that the BVAS for the authentication of voters will be domiciled with the Independent National Electoral Commission while the ballot papers and the result sheets that are no longer highly sensitive materials will still be domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria.

“The political parties unanimously agreed that the hybrid option is going to be a better option. But the commission will also present the same options before Civil Society Organizations and before the media and also before the security agencies on Friday,” he said.