Moghalu corrects alleged misreporting of his views in the press

Professor Moghalu, who is a presidential aspirant of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) and former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in a press statement on Sunday said his attention has been drawn to the misreporting in some media platforms of some of the views he recently expressed and he would like the wrong impressions the reports may have created in the general public and his teeming supporters corrected.

This is according to the press statement signed by Jide Akintunde, Official Spokesman for Presidential Aspirant, Professor Kingsley Moghalu and his To Build A Nation (TBAN) movement.

“In reporting sourced from the News Agency of Nigeria, on the 2018 Guest Lecture of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), which was delivered by Prof. Moghalu in Lagos on Thursday, June 28th, Kingsley was quoted to have said that the “reforms by the CBN to buy non-performing loans and aid financial stability had proved unsuccessful.” It is not true that he said this, and the opposite of the statement is the truth and the reality.

“Moreover, as CBN Deputy Governor for Financial System Stability, Kingsley was the one who led the implementation of the reforms to stabilise the Nigerian banks during the 2009 financial crisis, under the overall leadership of then-CBN Governor,Lamido Sanusi, now Emir of Kano. The reforms included the setting up of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), to buy non-performing loans of the distressed banks.

“The conclusive evidence of the success of the reforms was that no Nigerian bank failed during the 2009 financial crisis. As further evidence of success, no depositor lost a kobo in the banks. These outcomes were unlike in the previous banking crisis in the 1990s, when several banks failed and Nigerian depositors lost huge sums of their deposits.

“Therefore, Kingsley’s deposition in his guest lecture was that the reforms for financial stability were successful. What he said had not been successful were efforts to address the challenge of facilitating real economic development in Nigeria by the development finance and other interventions of the CBN. According to him, this was precisely because the structural conditions for successful capitalism – property rights, innovation, and capital – had not been met in Nigeria.

“The second misreporting was in The Guardian newspaper. In its news report, available on its website, titled “Why Buhari must be retired in 2019 – Moghalu,” it was reported that Kingsley said “BUHARI HAS DONE ENOUGH TO MERIT A SECOND TERM and must (be) ‘retired’ the same way former President Goodluck Jonathan was voted out of office in 2015.”

“This statement is factually and logically flawed. Kingsley did not say Buhari has done enough to merit a second term. On the contrary, he believes and said that Buhari has NOT done enough to merit a second term.

“Kingsley believes in merit. He, therefore, will not say someone should be denied an opportunity he or she merits. The reason Kingsley believes Buhari does not deserve a second term is because he (Buhari), obviously, has not merited it, given the rampant killing of Nigerians around the country, high unemployment rate in the country and the country’s progressively declining standing in the society of nations.

“Thirdly, in its reporting of the 2018 CIBN guest lecture, Punch in its Friday, June 29th, news story, titled “Economic incompetence caused recession ―Moghalu,” claimed that Kingsley said “There was an economic crisis in 2014/2015, and the best thing the government felt they could do was to fix interest rate.”

“What Kingsley identified as the policy misstep in this instance was “fixed exchange rate.” It was not “fixed interest rate.”

“These errors should not have happened and are therefore exasperating. We would be glad, if the necessary corrections are made.

“We would like to challenge our compatriots in the media to a higher level of accuracy in their journalistic reporting, even as we look forward to working closely together in building a secure, prosperous and internationally-respected Nigerian nation”.