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CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele And His Fake Dollar Comment
We have watched with disappointment, statements credited to the current Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emefiele over the buying of dollar with naira in Nigeria.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele tries to be smart by saying, the Nigerians maybe buying the dollar with naira for electioneering purposes.
This, he knows very well is not true with the current reality in Nigeria.
CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele can be rightly accused of professional and administrative fraud in his decision to make the naira to dollar exchange more porous and pushing all genuine Nigerian businessmen and women to black markets to buy dollar at a very high rate before they can be able do business with their foreign partners.
Before the coming of Godwin Emefiele as CBN Governor, Nigerian businessmen and women can use their naira master and visa card or naira account in commercial banks to buy goods and services worth over 5 thousand dollars in abroad or inter country transactions.
Soon after the presidential victory of Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, Godwin Emefiele administratively started devaluing the naira by thus promoting domiciliary account in Deposit Money Banks.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele allows commercial banks to place an embargo on the naira master and visa card for International transactions and open a full fraud window of corruption by thus, making the Domiciliary account, the only means, for foreign transactions in Nigeria.
In 2015 and 2020, the commercial banks placed an embargo of 300 dollar per month on naira accounts for international or foreign transactions.
Meaning, any foreign transactions or buying above 300 dollar must be done via Domiciliary account which required the businessman or woman to withdraw his or her naira cash from the commercial bank, then, go to black market to buy dollar with naira and come back to the commercial banks to deposit same money into his or her domiciliary account. Before he or she can be able to do business with foreign partners.
This made the dollar rate to go higher, up to 480 naira to a dollar. And lives became more difficult for those living in Nigeria. Automatically, making cost of goods and services to increase abnormally without market force.
Mind you, ninety nine percent of businesses in Nigeria cannot complete the process of their products or services without having foreign input or contribution just like any other country in the world.
Between 2020 and 2021, the CNB Governor, Godwin Emefiele allows banks to place another embargo on foreign transactions with 100 dollar per month on naira account.
This, pushed more Nigerians to the black markets. And the naira became more devalued. Exchange rate became 534 naira to a dollar. Cost of living in Nigeria, again, became worst as prices of goods and services increased with over 200 percent. Gino tin tomatoes of 50 naira became 150 naira.
Bad as it maybe, in January 2022, CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele seemly throwed window of corruption wide open. He allows commercial banks to now decide on their own, how much Nigerians can use their naira account or master or visa naira card to buy goods or services in abroad.
Some commercial banks nowadays do not even allow any naira account to be used to buy goods and services abroad. Those that still allows, only permit 10, 20 or maximum 50 dollar per month.
The current reality is that, almost all genuine Nigerian businessmen and women must go to black market to buy dollar to fund their domiciliary account before they can do business in Nigeria.
This has made the cost of one loaf of bread to rise from 400 naira to 1,100 naira according to the current price from some of the bakeries.
Before we express our opinion, on the way forward to end this open door massive corruption, currently going on in Nigeria, we republished the CBN Governor statement and the clarification given by its official on the buying of dollar with naira as published by ThisDay newspaper below:
CBN Clarifies Stance on Conversion of Naira to Dollar
Nigeria
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has clarified a statement made by its Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, at Tuesday’s post-Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting media briefing.
It stressed that Emefiele had during the media briefing warned bank customers against converting the naira to dollars for electioneering purposes.CBN Director, Corporate Communications Department, Mr. Osita Nwanisobi stated this following what he described as attempts by persons to deliberately misrepresent Emefiele’s caution on electioneering spending by the political class.
At the MPC briefing, Emefiele in response to a question on the impact of election spending had said: “For election spending as far as we are concerned what we do is to monitor liquidity in the system and once we see that there is excess liquidity we will continue to use our discretionary powers to mop up liquidity in the vaults of the banks so that they will not get involved in speculative activities with those who want to speculate with the currency.
“As for those who want to be taking naira from their account to buy dollar because of elections, I want to warn, not advise that it is illegal to do so. Whereas it sounds more convenient that you should carry dollars because you can carry a little dollar with a lot of value in your pocket, but if the security agencies hold you know the implication of that we will continue from our own side.
“We have our own apparatus through which we monitor movement of funds between customer or between banks and customers or from one bank to another. Any bank that we find in those kind of transactions that we consider to be unauthorised or that we consider to be illegal you can be guaranteed that your account will be placed on Post No Debit (PND).
“When your account is placed on PND it means you will never be able to conduct banking transactions in any bank in Nigeria. It is a very injurious tool that the CBN uses. CBN has turned itself into a monster that uses an injurious tool to stop you from conducting illegal flows, whether domestic or foreign currency. So I will advise you not to get involved in unauthorised and illegal movement of money from your bank to your account or from your account to another account or in currency conversion. When you do that and you are caught in that practice your account will be placed on PND.”
According to Nwanisobi, the warning by the CBN Governor was to those who sought to convert the naira from their accounts into foreign currencies for election campaign and not those who seek to exchange the currency for legitimate purposes such as payment for tuition and other personal expenses.Reiterating the bank’s position, the CBN spokesman also frowned at the conduct of unauthorised movement of funds within and outside the country, saying it would use tools at its disposal to check the movement of illicit funds.
While maintaining that the bank, in line with its mandate, had discretionary power to prevent persons from conducting unauthorised transactions, Nwanisobi said the CBN was within its statutory limits to mop up the excess liquidity in the vaults of the institutions its regulates, so they do not get involved in speculative activities.
He, therefore, urged bank customers not to get involved in unauthorised movement of funds for currency conversion in order not to fall foul of the extant laws of the land. Nwanisobi also admonished Nigerians to be more patriotic as it relates to the naira, noting that it was the duty of every citizen to support the CBN in preserving the value of the naira.
@views exclusive rights: THISDAY Newspaper, July 22, 2022.
There is no need saying the obvious that the Domiciliary account product existing in Nigeria banks is a fraud and should be prohibited.
If CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele is sincere and really wished to prove us wrong that his comment on buying dollar with naira is not fake as we stated in this editorial headline, he should issue a directive and mandate all deposit money banks to convert all domiciliary accounts to naira accounts.
CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele should mandate all banks to process all foreign transactions, buying of goods and services in abroad with only Nigeria legal tender, naira account or naira master card or visa card.
We believe, if CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele is mandated by President Muhammadu Buhari to issue and enforce these two aforementioned directives, Nigeria problems are almost half solved.
The artificial high cost of living in the country maybe well addressed.
If these recommendations are not enforced, many more Nigerians will continue to buy dollars with naira for their daily business transactions.
