Chairman of Nigeria’s anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, has said that the dollar may crash by 75 percent after the redesigning of naira.
Confiance News gathered that as at Monday, November 21, 1$ is sold for N790 at the black/parallel market.
More so, at the Investor & Exporter (I&E) window, Naira exchanged at N443.49 for 1$ as at Friday, November 18, 2022.
Speaking with the Radio Deutsche Welle, DW, Hausa Service, recently, Bawa said the move has since started yielding desired results.
Bawa is confident that dollar will crash to as low as N200 to a dollar.
Confiance News recalls that Nigeria’s apex bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had announced plans to redesign N200, N500 and N1,000 notes to curb hoarding and counterfeiting of the currency.
The move by the apex bank had since been greeted with mixed reactions with some arguing that the decision would impact negatively on the economy.
He commended President Muhammadu Buhari for approving the redesign.
He said: “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 ₦200.”
The EFCC chair also dismissed claims in some quarters that the move was an attempt to cripple opposition parties in Nigeria, ahead of the 2023 general elections.
“Is it only the opposition that votes during elections? Everybody votes during elections, and there is no political motive behind 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 the 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 and found to be true, we will give 5 percent of the money to them.
Confiance News recalls that before the recent directive by the CBN, Naira exchanged for as high as N900 to 1$ at the black market, however, the recent directive by the apex bank on Naira redesign has led to massive deposits of naira notes at banks and the discovery of buried and decayed notes at some locations.
