This did not start with him, it started with his predecessor the highly respected but sanely controversial Emir Sanusi. All of a sudden, the CBN Governor develops the messianic complex, wanting to solve all the problems of the country. With intervention funds, the Governor starts to intervene in areas, it does not have any constitutional right nor the capacity to intervene.
It has become so prevalent that whole regions have now started accusing this present Governor of marginalizing them regions in his movements like he was some sort of elected Official with a budget. Nigerians being what we are only watch and clap as the role of the CBN is being decimated and spread thin by activities that it was not set out to perform.
I have received the news of the CBN working with the Bankers committee plan to take over the National Theatre with the active support of the Lagos State Government . according to reports, it would be building an Entertainment Industrial Park with a princely sum of N22b or thereabout.
This totally saddens me because of the flagrant lose of focus by the CBN under this fella. If you look and if I am not wrong, the CBN’s constitutional role remains the supervision of Monetary and Fiscal policies of the Economy. Working with the economic team to ensure that the economy is on an even keel. But what we are seeing here is the CBN in its messianic tendencies usurping not only the roles of designated Ministries but also that of the private sector.
What we are seeing here now is regulatory economy coming in through the backdoor. While on the one hand, the Government is privatizing and commercializing. Pulling back from areas they have no business in to raise much needed cash for other areas of immediate exigency we now see the CBN on its part pulling Government and its famed inefficiency into the economy. Or how else are we going to explain this whopping sum that would be sunk into what is apparently a huge white elephant project.
Let me state it here very clearly, the entertainment industry by its very nature is self driven and can only be maximized if it is arrow headed by private initiative. It is even more critical because unlike other sectors, its currency is not physical but ideas and vision driven. When you now take red tape and those who only understand collateral to drive it what you wiil get is mud in the face and wasted resources.
This so-called industrial Park is a waste of time and would go the same way things like this have gone. The National Theatre that they would be throwing this money at was also born out of this kind of myopic thinking, today it is a huge albatross on our necks. Such edifices litter the Country all creating one sick derelict of our profligate existence. Much more recently, Ambode in Lagos built some theatres in his bid to encourage and support the industry, today they stand obsolete in their obscurity.
Please the CBN has no business in show business or any business for that matter. The best the Government can do is to promote the industry by throwing up practitioner friendly policies like copy right protection, level playing fields, support for lending to the infrastructural parts of the industry through the provision of soft loans, tax rebates amongst other such incentives. Direct involvement is a no go area and as been proven will lead to unmitigated disaster and if we are not careful mute the growing industry.
The industry has grown tremendously despite Government and its policies and what we are seeing is the Government struggling to catch up with regulation and this kind of thoughtless intervention. We have seen serious Nigerian Media entrepreneurs through their blood build globally recognized platforms using some very original Nigerian vision and ethos.
What is needed is definitely not a CBN driven by the euphoria of an unprecedented tenor renewal to distract genuine practitioners with half brained money guzzling ideas when paucity of funds continue to bedevil genuine practitioners.
Emefiele and his suits are better of focusing on the weakened economy and its attendant effects on standard of living and other indices of quality of Life instead of this macabre dance on hot coals in their bid to play to a much suffered gallery.