Relocation Of FAAN, CBN: Move the Commerce Ministry To Onitsha Or Kano - Dalhatu

Excerpts of AriseTV's interview with Bashir Dalhatu SAN, a former Minister of Power & Mines, then later interior under the Sani Abacha Government and currently the Chairman, Board of Trustees, Arewa Consultative Forum
 

Dalhatu SAN: If you talk about transferring FAAN to Lagos because there are more airline activities in Lagos than in Abuja, then you should take the Ministry of Commerce to Onitsha or to Kano because there are far more commercial activities in these two cities than in Abuja.

You should also take the Ministry of Agriculture to Makurdi where there is a lot of Agricultural activities and food production.

You can distribute these Ministries to locations according to the kind of activities you can identify but that is not the intention or the reason or purpose of establishing a Federal Capital Territory. It is supposed to be in itself a symbol of unity, a symbol of togetherness of this country.

The moment you start dismembering Ministries back to Lagos, first, you are establishing a precedence, because next Government comes up and it doesn't happen to be from the South will now return them or transfer them from Lagos back to Abuja or maybe Kaduna or Sokoto or Calabar or things like that.

So the intention really is to make institutions symbolic of our unity, symbolic of the purpose of this country and not to give reasons. If you say congestion, when you mention congestion in relation to cities, anybody you tell about congestion will first think of Lagos.

Interviewer: The CBN is saying its Headquarters is supposed to house about 3000 but currently have over 4000 staff. The CBN also spends money sending its own staff to go to Lagos to spend 2 or 3 months to do certain jobs, which normally should have been domiciled in Lagos and they are speaking so much. So for effectiveness, CBN is saying it wants to decongest its Headquarters and people are wondering why Northern leaders and elite are having a problem with that?

Dalhatu SAN: First of all, the CBN building and the staff must have been in Abuja for nearly 30 years and we have never heard about this until suddenly it came up, that is one.

We know in Lagos, the Banking Supervision in Lagos is already strong, it never moved to Abuja and could still do its function there.

Three, at the age of technology now, you can work for a Chinese Company while you sit here in Abuja and still perform your function. For CBN to say that it does not have that kind of upgrade in its own operations, we think it's not true.

We Are apprehensive because we believe this is a tip of the iceberg.