Moving FAAN, CBN units to Lagos, plot to underdevelop North – ACF

The Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, has rejected the move by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to relocate some key departments from the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, to Lagos State.

ACF also kicked against the plan to move the headquarters of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, from the nation’s capital to Lagos State.

Internal memo issued last week by FAAN’s Managing Director, Olubunmi Kuku, disclosed that Nigeria’s Aviation Minister, Festus Keyamo, had directed the relocation of FAAN headquarters to Lagos.

In the same vein, CBN has detailed a decongestion action plan designed to optimise its operational environment by relocating some key units to Lagos.

Reacting, ACF in a statement issued on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Prof. T. A. Muhammad-Baba alleged that the moves were part of a plot to underdevelop the North.

The statement reads partly, “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 proposed actions of the two agencies, i.e. CBN and FAAN are precipitous and mala fide. Still in the Ministry of Aviation, only 8 of 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”.