Afenifere tackles Senate over moves to scrap BoI

The pan- Yoruba socio- political group, Afenifere, on Thursday, kicked against moves by the Senate to repeal the Act setting up the Bank for Commerce and Industry (BoI), describing its an ethnic agenda.

The group’s opposition to the bill titled, “A Bill for an Act to Establish the National Development Bank, 2015,” was contained in a statement made available to the Nigerian Tribune, by the Afenifere’s National Publicity Secrectary, Mr Yinka Odumakin.

Afenifere, while saying that its attention had been drawn to the bill which had passed the Second Reading on the floor of the Senate, and committed to the Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Bodies for further works, also expressed surprise that the plan to have BoI scrapped “has also curiously attracted support from the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Ministry of Finance.”

The group enjoined the people insinuating that the bank was only serving the southerners, “not to kill the bank for such reason,” contending that, it was “only in Nigeria where politics takes precedence over development that anybody could be thinking of scrapping the Bank of Industry (BoI), that has provided succour for many businesses at a time, we are in a recession and should be strengthening industrialisation to fight our way out.

“We are fully persuaded that the BoI should be provided with more capital to be able to further support the real sector, instead of duplicating functions by creating new development finance institutions, bearing in mind the failure of similar DFIs in the past, such as the NBCI, NERFUND, People’s Bank, Community Banks, etc,” the Afenifere added.

Speaking further, Afenifere said rather those making the moves to scrap, the BoI should encourage people in the North to also embrace enterprise and approach the bank with viable projects, the way the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Salisu Buhari, did with thousands of people with the support of the same BoI.

According to the pan- Yoruba socio- political group, the same success story had also been replicated by Alhaji Amasko, a Kano- based businessman, who engaged in lubricant business.

“We advise such people not to kill the bank for such reason. They should rather encourage people in the North to also embrace enterprise and approach the bank with viable projects, the way the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Salisu Buhari, did with thousands of employees on his payroll, with the support of BoI. His success story has also been replicated by Alhaji Amasko in Kano, who has been very successful in the lubricant business.

“Instead of killing BoI that is working, the Senate should be concerned with reviving the Bank of Agriculture, which is in comatose now but has been sustaining agricultural activities mostly in the North.

“The bank throughout its active years was headed by Northerners, as it was argued that its operations were greater in the North and nobody quarreled with that. This becomes more urgent now that we are talking of diversification.

“Finally, we advise the National Assembly to support industrialisation, by enacting legislation that will help create an enabling environment for business to thrive, such as an amendment to the Land Use Act, tax incentives for SMEs and establishment of industrial parks.

“The World Bank reports have continually scored us poorly in the ease of doing business index,” Afenifere said.