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| Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele. (Source: premiumtimesng) |
On June 10, the Nigerian Internal Security Agency (DSA) announced that local security forces had arrested Mr. Godwin Emefiele, who was recently suspended from his position as CBN Governor after nearly a decade in office.
CBN has not yet responded to the above information. CBN Deputy Governor will assume the role of interim Governor pending the conclusion of the investigation.
A government spokesman said the suspension was part of an ongoing investigation into Mr Emefiele's office and plans for financial sector reforms.
Nigeria is in the midst of an economic crisis stemming from a lax currency exchange policy. The initial goal of the plan was to eradicate the illegal cash economy and replace it with new notes to encourage people to deposit their Naira in banks.
However, the country’s banking system did not have enough new notes to exchange for people before the old Naira notes were withdrawn. This created an unprecedented crisis in Africa and led to a series of protests and riots as people stormed bank branches and vandalized them.
As of January 2023, the CBN’s new regulations will only allow people to withdraw 100,000 Naira, equivalent to $217, per week. Meanwhile, the government has only recovered 1.3 trillion Naira out of a total of 3.23 trillion Naira.
Many blame individual bank branches.
Accordingly, individual bank branches continue to issue old notes instead of new ones until the date of cessation of old notes. Therefore, old notes are still in circulation.
The cash crunch has now become a major political issue with calls for President Muhammadu Buhari to act to avoid losing votes in the upcoming elections.
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