Adams Oshiomhole, senator representing Edo North, has blamed excessive money printing under former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration for the collapse of the naira.
Speaking on Saturday at the Progressives Governors Forum’s meeting and interactive session in Edo, Oshiomhole said the root cause of the current cost of living crisis and exchange rate challenges can be traced to the excessive money supply created through ways and means under the previous administration.
“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’. The governor said, ‘if we print more money, Uganda currency will be like a sheet of paper,” Oshiomhole said.
“This is what the immediate past CBN government was doing. In the senate, we have the records. Now, they printed over N31 trillion, which they call ways and means. You know, when government wants to deceive the people, they use jargons. They call it ways and means, but I can tell you what it means.
“It means a situation in which government print banknotes, not based on what we are earning or any resources. It is the result of that excessive printing of banknotes that led to the collapse of the naira. Because you print more naira, and you have limited dollars. You use this more naira to change few dollars, so what happens? The price of the dollar went up, and the value of the naira went down.”
The senator further said Buhari’s administration borrowed excessively, placing the burden of debt repayment on President Bola Tinubu.
“Nigeria was borrowing everyday the way fish drink water. Today, it has been the burden of President Bola Tinubu to pay back those loans, in order to guarantee the sovereignty of our nation,” he said.
Oshiomhole also noted that federal finances are now more transparent under Tinubu’s leadership.
“All governors now agree that under president Bola Tinubu, there is more transparency in revenue allocation,” he said.
“Before Tinubu, even the money you earned, Buhari and the former CBN governor told you your money had expired. Is that not correct?
“Yet, we are in a country where over 40 percent of the local government have no banks, which means all those who kept money in their house had expired. Bola Ahmed Tinubu has renewed the validity of that money.”
On the exchange rate unification policy, Oshiomhole said the dual rates, which benefited the rich and connected, have been abolished. He urged Nigerians to appreciate current economic reforms and help educate others on the nation’s trajectory.
