Charles Soludo, a former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, has likened Nigeria’s economic mismanagement during ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to how one of Africa’s brutal dictators, Idi Amin Dada ran his country aground. Idi Amin, Uganda’s third president who ruled between 1971 and 1979, had an eccentric persona and believed to be highly corrupt. A 1977 Time magazine article described him as a “killer and clown, big-hearted buffoon and strutting martinet”. Soludo believed Jonathan aped Amin by allegedly digging his hands into the CBN vaults.
“Imagine a scenario where a president can order the CBN to create an Intervention Fund for national stability and CBN literally ‘prints’ say, N3 trillion, and doles it out cash to the Presidency to prosecute an election campaign or for just about anything he fancies. It is a scary thought.
“We are going down a dangerous path that ruins the economy. I don’t know any other country where such is tolerated, except, perhaps, what I watched in a movie about Idi Amin and his Central Bank governor,” Soludo stated. He further accused Jonathan of turning the CBN to “the ATM of the Presidency.”
“Recent revelations regarding the ‘arms-gate’ and the apparent abuse of the CBN as ATM by the Presidency should get reasonable people thinking,” Soludo said in an interview with The Interview.
