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By Amaechi Ogbonna
Against the backdrop of the huge value erosion currently bedeveling the Naira, Nigeria’s national currency, the presidential candidate of Labour Party in the February 25, 2023 presidential election, Mr Peter Gregory Obi, has called for the enactment of a law to criminalise and sanction the use of United States of America Dollar as underground or shadow currency in Nigeria for economic transactions.
Obi who spoke in a television interview programme “The Morning Show” “on Arise Television, yesterday said it was wrong for Nigerians to be spending USD within the country in place of Naira which is its legal tender.
He noted in all other countries, dollar is only used largely for international financial transactions and not as an alternative to their legal tender currency.
He lamented that in the case of Nigeria, the USD was being shared to delegates at the last party primaries ahead of the 2023 general election instead of the local currency to the extent that more peoprl now have more confidence in the dollar than the Nigerian currency, hence his call on the National Assembly to push for a law to criminalise use of foreign currencies for local economic transactions.
“Nigeria has a currency called naira and so dollar should not be an underground currency in the country because it is putting pressure on the Naira to make it lose value.”
“Today Naira is exchanging at over N1000 to $1 because of this attitude”.
“If you earn dollars legitimately you can put them in your pillow and spend it anyhow but using dollar as underground currency should be made illegal and those found doing it should be sanctioned.” He advised
Commenting on what he would have done differently to stabilise the ailing naira, the LP standard bearer who spoke from London, decried the currency’s loss of value, said he would have devalued the naira by not more N600 to a dollar and then work toward developing Nigeria’s export sector in order to generate more foreign exchange for the country.
According to him, part of his strategy would have been to tackle the criminal side of foreign exchange market transactions, including roundtripping in the official market and fighting the internal war against crude oil theft where he said over 400000 barrels of crude are allegedly being stolen dailyby unscrupulous politicians.
Obi said he would also be blocking other criminal loopholes through which the nation’s commonwealth is being looted.
On the issue of subsidy removal he explained that as stated in his manifesto he would have still removed subsidy by first consulting with relevant stakeholders after putting all necessary palliatives in motion to cushion the effort of the policy in addition to eliminating corruption associated with the subsidy regime. He pointed out that such a measure would actually reveal quantum of petroleum products consumed daily across the country. He said that savings from the subsidy would be invested in priority sectors like education, health, and poverty alleviation initiatives.
He said that if the proceeds of subsidy removal are well utilized, the citizens will obviously believe in the government and support its policies.
The LP candidate noted however that the announcement effect adopted by the Tinubu administration shows that most of it economic policies were not thought through but are made on the go, citing the independence speech where the it initially awarded provisional wage increase of N25,000 for six months only to raise it to 35,000 per month as an indication that its policies were not properly thought through.
“The temporality of government policies so far shows they were never thought through’ He said.
Foreign roadshow to attract investors do not work and cannot work. Government must maintain security and increase export to revive the economy, he said.
