The senator representing Edo North, Adams Oshiomhole has, claimed that the excessive printing of money by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) through the Ways and Means policy during erstwhile president Muhammadu Buhari’s administration led to the crippling of the naira.
Naija News reports that the Ways and Means provision allows the Federal Government to borrow from the CBN if it needs emergency finance to fund delayed government expected cash receipts of fiscal deficits.
Speaking at a Progressives Governors Forum’s Meeting and Interactive Session in Benin City, Edo State, on Saturday, Oshiomhole blamed the policy for the eventual collapse of the Nigerian currency against the US dollar.
He said, “We are coming from a country that was almost like Zimbabwe or Idi Amin’s Uganda where he asked the Central Bank governor ‘go and print more money for us to share to the people’. And the governor said, ‘if we print more money, Uganda currency will be like a sheet of paper’.
“This is what the immediate past CBN governor was doing. In the Senate, we have the record that they printed over ₦31 trillion, which they called Ways and Means. You know, when the government wants to deceive people, they use jargon.
“They called it Ways and Means but I can tell you what it means: it means a situation in which the government prints banknotes, not based on what we have earned or any resources, just print banknotes to go and share to the people to meet their money illusion. It is the result of that excessive printing of banknotes that led to the collapse of the naira.”
Speaking further, Oshiomhole stated, “To understand the root cause of the present cost of living and the exchange rate regime, you must trace it and locate it in terms of the excessive amount of banknotes through so-called Ways and Means, which the past government created and which this government has eliminated”.
He added that Nigeria was “borrowing every day the way fish drink water”, adding that it has become President Bola Tinubu’s burden to pay back those loans in order to guarantee the sovereignty of Nigeria.
The post Nigeria Was Borrowing Every Day The Way Fish Drinks Water – Oshiomhole Reveals How Naira Collapsed During Buhari’s Administration appeared first on Naija News.