The House of Reps has withdrawn its intended arrest warrant on Governor Godwin Emefiele of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The Chairman of the House Committee on Customs and Excise, Leke Abejide, had ruled that the arrest warrant be issued on Emefiele over his alleged refusal to answer a summon by lawmakers.
The House had on January 27, 2022, asked the CBN to suspend the electronic evaluation and invoicing policy recently introduced in the import and export chain.
According to the lawmakers, the suspension of the policy was pertinent, as it might negatively affect revenue collection by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).
Emefiele was also to appear before the committee to explain the implication of the policy to Customs’ revenue target in 2022.
The resolution was based on Abejide’s motion titled ‘Call on the Central Bank of Nigeria to Suspend the Implementation of the new Guidelines on the Introduction of E-Evaluator, E-Invoicing for Imports and Exports Businesses in Nigeria.’
Moving the motion, Abejide had recalled that the CBN, on January 21, 2022, issued a circular on guidelines on imports and exports businesses in Nigeria, with Reference Number TED/FEM/FPC/PUB/01/001 to take effect from February 1, 2022, 10 days after the issuance of the guidelines.
“sudden monetary/fiscal circular hurriedly or half-hazard implemented often leads to policy summersault, hence major policy change such as this, a grace period of 90 days is usually expected for transactions to run their full course to avoid distortion in the economy and price distortions of trade,” the lawmaker argued.
While adopting the notion, the House of Reps asked the apex bank to “suspend the policy with immediate effect to enable adequate sensitization on the workability of the policy in all major ports of entry including seaports, airports and border stations.”
It also “invite the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria to brief the Committee on Customs and Excise, with the assurances that the target revenue of N3.1tn given to the Nigeria Customs Service by the Federal Government of Nigeria, which the NCS announced to the media that they are targeting N4.2tn, will not be distorted by this sudden policy implementation.”
The ongoing issue between the lawmakers and Emefiele, however, took a sudden turn on Tuesday, February 22, 2022, when Abejide expressed his displeasure with the absence of the CBN chief.
Maintaining that the parliament would not tolerate further his refusal to honour its summons, the lawmaker insisted that an arrest warrant be made on Emefiele.
But shortly after Abejide’s call to arrest Emefiele, a closed-door meeting between members of the parliament was held, after which the lawmaker said the warrant has been withdrawn.
“Please, everything has been withdrawn behind closed doors and we resolved to withdraw the warrant of arrest earlier issued against the CBN governor. But if anyone tries to look down on the parliament, we will go ahead.” he disclosed.
