At Tuesday’s post-Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting briefing, Governor Godwin Emefiele warned bank customers not to convert the naira to foreign exchange for electioneering purposes. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has clarified this comment.
Following what he termed as attempts by some to purposefully misinterpret the significance of Emefiele’s warning on electioneering spending by the political class, Mr. Osita Nwanisobi, Director, Corporate Communications Department, CBN, provided the clarification in an interview with newsmen in Lagos.
Nwanisobi claims that the CBN Governor’s admonition was directed at people who wanted to swap the Naira for foreign cash for political campaigns rather than others who wanted to do so for legal reasons.
He reiterated the apex bank’s stance, saying that the CBN would utilize its available powers to prevent the flow of illegal cash and that it also disapproved of the practice of transferring funds without authorization both inside and outside the nation.
Nwanisobi argued that the CBN was within its statutory authority to remove excess liquidity from the vaults of the institutions it oversees, preventing them from engaging in speculative activities, while retaining that the CBN had the discretionary authority to stop people from carrying out illegal transactions in accordance with its mandate.
Therefore, in order to avoid breaking the current laws of the land, he advised bank customers to refrain from engaging in the illicit transfer of cash for currency conversion. Nwanisobi also cautioned Nigerians to be more patriotic when it comes to the Naira, emphasizing that it is everyone’s responsibility to help the CBN maintain the Naira’s intranational value.
