The Dean of Borno Elders Forum, Prof Khalifa Dikwa, has described as “provocative”, the 0.5% cybersecurity levy on electronic transactions recently introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The political analyst and elder statesman asked President Bola Tinubu to immediately order the apex bank to suspend the implementation of the new policy.
“This is not the time, it’s wrong timing. Why are they provoking the people of this country? They have taken enough,” he said with a matter-of-fact facial expression when he featured on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Wednesday.
It is the wrong time to impose the cybersecurity levy, says Prof Dikwa
In a circular dated May 6, 2024 to all deposit money banks and mobile money operators and payment service providers, the apex bank directed the deduction of the levy to be remitted to the National Cybersecurity Fund (NCF), administered by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).
The development has sparked wild outrage with labour unions threatening actions.
Dikwa urged the Tinubu administration not to increase the pains of the people. “I’ll just say: ‘Withdraw it, this is democracy, and my people are saying, no. I’ll just say withdraw it and wait for another time to conveniently do it’,” he said.
The elder statesman said the Tinubu administration has been remote-controlled by Bretton Woods institutions like International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
“They are interested in bringing Nigeria into crisis, lawlessness,” he said, insisting that subsidies are rights and not privileges.
He said Nigeria has enough resources to even pay unemployed citizens salaries and lamented as “unfortunate”, the current situation.
Dikwa said members of the elite in the northern region of the country are unhappy with Tinubu because of his “misfit and weak appointees” as well as his “anti-people policies”.