Abdulrasheed Bawa, chairman of the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC), says the dollar may crash to N200 after the redesign
of naira notes.
Bawa said this in an interview with the Hausa service of
Deutsche Welle (DW) on Wednesday.
On October 26, Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank
of Nigeria (CBN), announced the plan to redesign the N200, N500 and N1,000
denomination of the country’s currency to control money supply and aid security
agencies in tackling illicit financial flows.
Bawa commended President Muhammadu Buhari for approving the
naira redesign policy.
“The law says the
redesigning of naira notes should be done every eight years but we spent 20
years without any changes on them,” Bawa said.
“And that resulted in 85 percent of money in circulation not
in banks. When CBN came up with this redesigning, the 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.”
Bawa 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,” he said.
“And nobody says they should not bring them, what the government
says is let them deposit such money in banks.”
The EFCC boss urged Nigerians to report anyone with hidden
money to the commission, and also promised to a 5 percent reward to
whistleblowers.
“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,” Bawa said.
Meanwhile, as part of its ongoing operation to sanitise the
foreign exchange sector, the EFCC recently arrested an alleged currency
speculator in Abuja.
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