Presidential aide Bayo Onanuga has warned northerners castigating President Bola Tinubu’s decision to move some Central Bank of Nigeria departments to Lagos, accusing them of attempting to “emasculate” a southerner’s presidency.

Mr Tinubu, a southerner, took over power from then-President Muhammadu Buhari, a northerner. Both men are members of the ruling All Progressives Congress.

According to Mr Onanuga, political detractors were exploiting the relocation of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and CBN as a ruse to promote ethnic and regional prejudice.

“President Tinubu has no plan whatsoever to move the Federal Capital to Lagos,” Mr Onanuga stated on X Wednesday afternoon. “The administrative move should have attracted scant attention, as Lagos is the commercial capital and the hub of aviation business in Nigeria. FAAN should be nowhere else, but near the industry it regulates.”

He further said the directive to transfer key CBN departments to Lagos was well-intentioned in that the operations of the affected departments involved commercial banks whose headquarters were already in Lagos state. 

“The movement of some departments of the CBN to Lagos should not trigger any hoopla,” stressed Mr Tinubu’s aide. “The departments concerned, including the bank supervision department, are those dealing with commercial banks, all with headquarters in Lagos.”

He asserted nothing was wrong with the CBN’s decision to be close to the financial institutions under its regulations.

“A regulator ought to be close to the businesses it regulates,” Mr Onanuga stated on X on Wednesday.

He admonished the fake news peddlers to “stop the dirty politics” of finding fault with every government directive just because they were not the ones in power.

“Administrative decisions should not be politicised. Let it not look like whenever we are temporarily not at the helm of affairs, we create all manners of dangerous rumours to distract from the bigger picture and emasculate an administration led by a southerner,” Mr Onanuga added.

On Tuesday, Senator Ali Ndume accused the “Lagos boys” of being behind the relocation, which he described as a “mistake” that would soon be reversed. A coalition of northern youths also threatened to organise protests across the 19 northern states to oppose the relocation directive.

In an internal memo last week, CBN said the transfer of some departments to Lagos state was aimed at decongesting the Abuja headquarters and optimising “the operational environment of the bank.”

The affected CBN departments include Other Financial Institutions Supervision (OFISD), Consumer Protection Department (CPD), Banking Supervision (DBS), Financial Policy Regulations Department (FPRD) and Payment System Management Department (PSMD).