The new Board Chairman of the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), Abdulhakeem Abdullateef, has condemned the passage of the NDIC Act, 2023.
Naija News recalls that the immediate past President, Muhammadu Buhari signed the NDIC (Repeal and Reenactment) Bill of 2023 into law on May 26, 2023, and repealed the NDIC Act, of 2006.
In a Facebook Live session on Monday, Abdullateef accused the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, and his cohorts of misleading Buhari to sign the bill into law.
The NDIC chairman alleged that the bill assented to by the former president had certain sections that were not included in the version passed by the National Assembly.
The former Lagos State Commissioner for Home Affairs stated that the NDIC should be a fully independent agency, not under the thumb of the CBN Governor who has the responsibility to appoint the NDIC Managing Director.
Abdullateef, who wept during the session, said the president is not allowed to appoint a managing director for the agency under the new law, and asked President Bola Tinubu to probe the passage of the NDIC Act, 2023.
He said: “NDIC stinks. There is a lot of rot going on. They say ‘When you fight corruption, corruption fights you’. This is the purported new act of the NDIC and I tell you for nothing that this is ‘Emefiele’s act’. Here, they have taken away the powers of Mr President in respect of the NDIC. This document that was signed is materially different from the vote and proceedings of the National Assembly that passed it.”
“I want Mr President not to act on this law until it is probed. Probe the passage of this law. Probe the inclusion of section 7 which takes away the right of the Ministry of Finance, which takes away the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance and replaced it with two directors from CBN.
“Probe why what is passed is fundamentally different from what was assented to. Probe what happened between the time the Senate passed it and the House of Representatives passed it and there was no divergence.
“Under the law, do you know the status of this new act? It is null and void. Anytime Mr President assents to a bill that is materially different from what was passed by the Senate and the House of reps, it means there was a material omission and the law was not matured for assent.
“There is a need for the new administration to return this act to the National Assembly when it is proclaimed. They should investigate it and allow National Assembly members to debate. Mr President, don’t act on the new NDIC Act.”