Current Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele will probably go down in history as one of the most often criticized public office holders in Nigeria.
His policies, especially with forex, has obviously gotten under the skin of a lot of Nigerians especially amongst analysts and economist who have over time proven to be correct in their criticisms of the Governor.
Ostensibly, Emefiele has also developed a thick skin for criticisms and going by his latest rant has developed a new way of interpreting criticisms. Here is what he had to say about “unjust” criticisms.
“I must confess that though we have been unjustly castigated, from various quarters for our work, we remain certain that the actions we have taken are indeed appropriate to set our economy on the path of development in the medium to long-term.
“When you have policies that people are praising, that means such policies are not really good, because the people praising the policies know that they can circumvent them. But if people criticise your policies, especially in Nigeria, such policies are good; the people criticise them because they know that they cannot circumvent them.
“We should remain resolutely committed to the course and be motivated by the achievability of our desire to strengthen the economic fundamentals.“When we stop importing toothpicks, stop eating imported rice cultivated with chemical, stop eating chicken imported and preserved with formaldehyde, then our economy will begin to grow.
“20 years ago, we had textile, we had the groundnut pyramids, we had Cocoa and palm oil. We also used revenue from agriculture to build our economy. But after we found oil, we abandoned all that for easy money. Today, we are suffering the consequences. ”