The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has accused the Bola Tinubu government of plotting to underdevelop the north by relocating the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to Lagos State.
Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State was elected President of Nigeria in February 2023 on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress.
In a statement on Sunday by the national publicity secretary, Prof. T. A. Muhammad-Baba the Forum claimed that the relocations were a ploy to underdevelop the North.
“The CBN’s decision is no means of isolated or normal administrative action to fix some logistics problem. Rather, it fits into a disturbing pattern of antagonistic actions often taken by certain federal administrations against the interests of Northern and other parts of Nigeria.
“The CBN’s announcements were followed by another from the Federal Ministry of Aviation’s Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, to also relocate to Lagos, due to shortage of office space and claim of the volume of air traffic handled by Lagos,” the northern group said.
“The proposed actions of the two agencies, CBN and FAAN are precipitous and mala fide. Still in the Ministry of Aviation, only 8 of the 40 directors recently appointed are from the North!
“ACF wishes to remind all concerned that decades ago, the seat of the capital of the Federal Republic was moved from Lagos to Abuja for reasons that remain valid, it is constitutional even more so today, constitutionally so, although, of course, a section of the country never liked the decision”.
Chronicle NG reports that FAAN Managing Director, Olubunmi Kuku, in an internal memo last week explained that Nigeria’s Aviation Minister, Festus Keyamo, directed that FAAN headquarters be relocated to Lagos.
ACF is a political and cultural association of leaders in Northern Nigeria founded in 2000 that has a significant impact on the political landscape.
