PROF. DIKWA URGES FG TO SUSPEND CBN’S 0.5% CYBERSECURITY LEVY
Prof. Khalifa Dikwa, the dean of the Borno Elders Forum, has referred to the 0.5% cybersecurity levy that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has instituted on electronic transactions as “provocative.”
The seasoned statesman and political analyst requested that President Bola Tinubu immediately direct the top bank to halt the new policy’s execution.
“This is not the right moment; the timing is off.” Why are they inciting this nation’s citizens? He made a matter-of-fact facial expression during his appearance on a Television programme on Wednesday. “They have taken enough,” he remarked.
The top bank ordered the deduction of the fee to be sent to the National Cybersecurity Fund (NCF), which is managed by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), in a circular dated May 6, 2024, addressed to all deposit money banks, mobile money operators, and payment service providers.
The development has provoked intense indignation, leading labour unions to threaten legal action.
Dikwa implored the Tinubu administration to refrain from making the people’s suffering worse. “All I’ll say is, pull it out; this is democracy, and my people are telling you no.” I’ll merely advise you to take it back and wait for a more convenient time to complete it,” he uttered.
The World Bank and other Bretton Woods organisations, according to the elder statesman, have remote control over the Tinubu administration.
“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”.