According to the Vanguard newspaper on its website, following the Central Bank of Nigeria’s announcement that it was redesigning the 200, 500 and 1000 naira notes, the Federal Government has disagreed with the CBN. Recall that in the afternoon of Wednesday, October 26th, 2022, Godwin Emefiele, CBN Governor, made the announcement that the above-stated naira notes would be redesigned. According to him, this was necessary to bring back into the control of the government the many naira notes outside bank vaults.
The disagreement by the FG came through the Minister for Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, who disowned the policy, citing that it posed consequences on Nigeria and its economy. However, Vanguard further reported that a highly-placed source, who spoke anonymously to it (Vanguard), stated that President Muhammadu Buhari had approved the redesigning. As it stands, the CBN and the Ministry of Finance seem not to be in agreement over the policy.
The Minister for Finance expressed her disagreement to the policy while responding during the defence session for the 2023 budget to a question asked her about the Naira becoming devalued after the redesigning announcement was made. She responded that the policy, maybe not bad in itself, was coming at a wrong time. She also stated that her Ministry was not consulted by the CBN, and so cannot comment on it as regards merit or otherwise. She appealed to the committee which interrogated her at the budget defence session to “invite the CBN governor for required explanations as regards merits of the planned policy and rightness or otherwise of its implementation now.”
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