Presidency: Tinubu Has No Plan to Relocate Federal Capital to Lagos

•Warns against north versus south politics 

•Ndume spoke for himself, says Kogi senator

•Nabena urges president to relocate NNPCL, NIMASA, NPA to Niger Delta

Olawale Ajimotokan and Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

The presidency, yesterday, dismissed insinuations that the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria to relocate its Department of Banking Supervision to Lagos and the directive of the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development that the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria(FAAN) should relocate its head office back to Lagos implied a covert scheme by President Bola Tinubu to relocate the Federal Capital back to Lagos.

According to a statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Information & Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, the presidency, which said there was no iota of truth in the allegation by mischief-makers, bent on fueling needless ethnic mistrust, however, warned against fanning the dangerous politics of pitting the north against south.

Also, the senator representing Kogi-West, Karimi Sunday, has said the Senate Whip, Senator Ali Ndume, spoke for himself and not the Red Chamber when he condemned the proposed relocation of some CBN departments and FAAN from Abuja, back to Lagos.

This was as a former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Yekini Nabena, has urged President Bola Tinubu to also approve the relocation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), amongst others to the Niger Delta region.

The presidency, in the statement, stated: “We consider it necessary to inform Nigerians that there is no iota of truth in the interpretations given to the directives in some quarters and the unfounded claims and rumours that President Bola Tinubu was planning to relocate the Federal Capital back to Lagos.

“These rumours, which first surfaced during the electioneering last year, was sponsored by political opponents looking for all manners of weapons to prevent Asiwaju Tinubu from being elected as president by a section of the country,” Onanuga said.

He labelled those fueling the renewed narrative, using the recent decision by the CBN and FAAN as pretext to start another round of toxic opposition as “dishonest ethnic and regional champions” trying to draw attention to themselves.

He insisted that the status of Abuja as the Federal Capital had come to stay, noting that it was backed by law.

“The movement of FAAN, an agency of Aviation Ministry, to Lagos, where it was located before former Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, moved it to Abuja during the last administration, does not amount to moving the Federal Capital to Lagos.

“The administrative move should have ordinarily attracted scant attention, as Lagos is the commercial capital and the hub of aviation business in Nigeria. FAAN will still maintain some presence in Abuja. It is not a wholesale movement.

“Similarly, the movement of the Department of Banking Supervision of the CBN to Lagos should not trigger any discord within the polity. The department concerned deals with commercial banks, almost all of which have their headquarters in Lagos,” Onanuga added.

He said that all those behind this campaign of falsehood and misinformation knew they were “merely playing politics, albeit a dangerous politics, to pit the North against the South.

“There are many parastatals that are not based in Abuja depending on their mandate. The headquarters of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), for example, are in Lagos.

‘In the same vein, the headquarters of National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) is in Lokoja, while that of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), was commissioned by former President Muhammadu Buhari is in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.

“It must be pointed out that these decisions are purely administrative that should not be politicised by people of goodwill and those who wish our country well,” Onanuga declared.

He added that the President Tinubu-led administration was working tirelessly to be just and equitable to every section of the country, while pleading restraint on the part of those whose stock in trade was to create all manner of rumours to distract every government from the noble objective of meeting the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians.

“Our citizens desire nothing but good governance that positively impacts their lives. Rumour mongering is a pernicious disservice to this ultimate expectation of our people,” he concluded.

Kogi Senator: Ndume Spoke for Himself

The Senator representing Kogi-West, Karimi Sunday, has said the Senate Whip, Senator Ali Ndume, spoke for himself and not the Red Chamber, when he condemned the proposed relocation of some departments in the CBN and FAAN from Abuja back to Lagos.

In a statement, yesterday, he maintained that Ndume’s position was personal and did not in any way represent a position taken by the Senate.

Karimi, a Chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) noted that it was needless for Ndume to be attaching ethnic or other sentiments to the relocation of the offices, which was done for cohesion and better delivery of services.

 He pointed out that leaders needed to avoid utterances that would heat up the polity and cause division and disaffection amongst the federating units of the country.

The lawmaker emphasised that the headquarters of 96 per cent of all banks in Nigeria are in Lagos, adding that the staff of the Banking and Supervision Department of the Central Bank often travel to Lagos to check their books at the headquarters, saying the move would save cost to have that directorate in Lagos.

Nabena to Tinubu: Relocate NNPCL, NIMASA, NPA to Niger Delta

A former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Yekini Nabena, has urged President Bola Tinubu to approve relocation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to the Niger Delta region.

Nabena, in a statement, also suggested that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development should be moved to Benue State, where agricultural produce was in abundance to justify the plan to move some departments of CBN and FAAN out of Abuja.

The APC chieftain, who suspected evil intention for making such a move contended that Senator Bola Tinubu did not believe in one Nigeria before he emerged the president.

“If efficiency of these agencies is the main reason for the plan to relocate them to Lagos State, we from the Niger Delta are also asking that the NNPCL, NIMASA, NPA and others will be more effective in either  Bayelsa, Rivers or Delta states.

“In the same way, the Federal Ministry of Mine and Steel should be moved to Kogi State, where we have the Ajaokuta Steel for efficiency. I also believe that the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment should either be relocated to Kano or Anambra States where trade is done in high proportion,”Nabena noted.