The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, said the dollar could exchange for the naira at N200 due to the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to redesign the currency.
Bawa explained that redesigning the naira could lead into a positive result, stating that the currency was supposed to be changed every decade, but the country hasn’t done that in 20 years.
He made this known in an interview with Deutsche Welle (DW) Hausa service on Wednesday, stating, “The law says the redesigning of Naira notes should be done every eight years but we spent 20 years without any changes on them.
“And that resulted to 85 per cent of money are in circulation not in banks, when CBN came up with this redesigning, dollar moved to 880 and later dropped to 680 or thereabouts. So you see with this redesigning dollar may massively fall, who knows probably to N200.”
Bawa also dispel reports that the central bank decided to redesign the naira due to politics. He explained that the motive behind it was to ensure that persons with hoarded currencies bring them out.
“There is no political motive in this; some people siphoned and hid public funds that is why we want them to bring them out and nobody says they should not bring them, what government says is let them deposit such money in banks.
“We assure Nigerians that we are always ready to receive reports of any person with suspicious hidden money and if investigated to be true, we will give 5 per cent of the money to them,” the EFCC boss said.
His prediction means the dollar rate could fall from the N446.67/$1 reported in the official market as of Tuesday. Also, the American greenback trades at N800 in the black or parallel market on Tuesday.
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