Nigeria’s Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, has blamed the current hardship in the country on certain monetary policies and actions implemented by the former CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele.
Akpabio who was speaking on Sunday in a function in Abuja said the Emefiele left multiple debts and economic mess for the current administration.
According to the former governor of Akwa Ibom State, the government is presently deliberating which allegations to prosecute Emefiele for, considering his numerous misconducts during his tenure as CBN governor.
He said:
- “The kind of debts and economic mess that we are in, a lot of people do not understand. President Obama said you cannot know Washington until you get to Washington, so by the time we went in to look at the economic situation of the country, It was terrible.
- “So you know the Former Governor of Central Bank, we don’t even know what to charge him with.
- “The hunger in the land is because of the kind of Policies and actions that they took.
- “We are battling to make sure that Nigerians can sleep with their eyes closed. We are battling to ensure that Nigerians can afford three square meals in a day.”
What you should know
- Nigeria is currently battling with a rising inflation rate of 29.90% and food inflation rate of 34.41% according to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
- The president who recently met with 36 governors to address the issue of economic hardship and insecurity said his administration will not resort to food importation as it promotes rent seeking and corruption.
- Meanwhile, the president announced the release of 40,000 tonnes of grain to crash the prices of food items in the market.
- “The first one is that the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security has been directed to release about 42,000 metric tons of maize, millet, garri, and other commodities in their strategic reserve so that these items will be made available to Nigerians; 42,000 metric tons immediately,” he told reporters.
- “The second one is that we have held meetings with the Rice Millers Association of Nigeria. Those who are responsible for producing this rice and we have asked them to open up their stores.
- “They’ve told us that they can guarantee about 60,000 metric tons of rice. They will make that available to Nigerians; to bring out to the market to make food available,” the president said.
Follow us for Breaking News and Market Intelligence.
Emefiele warned against Naira float. You floated it and what emefiele warned has happened. Now u blame emefiele.
Floating the Naira isn’t the issue. It’s the fact that N27trn was printed through ways and means which massively expanded the money supply, meaning more naira chasing fewer dollars.
Fixed exchange rate, floating exchange rate, the result would still be the same, high domestic inflation, pressure on the naira resulting in depreciation at the very least on the parallel market.
Dude, for seemingly the umpteenth time, Nigeria’s inflation is NOT demand-pull (which is why monetary tightening MPC measures never worked). Manufacturers and other producers in Nigeria are operating well below installed capacity because there are few customers for their products.
BTW, while the N27trn was being “printed through ways and means” the same Mr Akpabio sat on the Senate (which has oversight responsibilities over the CBN) as a principal officer and subsequently became a member of the executive branch as a Minister spending some of the N27trn.
That a principal officer of both the legislative and executive branches claimed to be ignorant of the state of the economy over which he is both a primary participant and an overseer thereof is a searing SELF-INDICTMENT and speaks to the piss-poor quality of Nigeria’s CURRENT leadership.
For the avoidance of any doubt, not a fan of Mr. Emefiele. With all due respect to his credentials, I thought at the time of his appointment that he was inappropriate for the office (just as I think I think Mr. Cardoso is, btw), but it is DUMB to ascribe Nigeria’s economic situation to him.
BTW, “more Naira were chasing fewer dollars” is a SYMPTOM and not a cause of Nigeria’s catastrophic economic situation…
It is the abject failure of government in its primary duties of preventing oil thefts, pipeline sabotage, curbing INSECURITY, building infrastructure, educating and upskilling the population, ensuring a healthy workforce and population, and generally providing ban enabling environment for businesses to thrive and scale, that is the actual primary cause of “more Naira chasing fewer dollars” as less inward investment flow and reduced forex earnings while Nigerians are COMPELLED to seek dollars for even the very BASICS of human existence – from education, healthcare, food, etc. Or to “japa” abroad for physical, professional, and psychological security.