YPP, SDP Presidential Candidates Knock CBN Over Naira Swap

The presidential candidates of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), Malik Ado-Ibrahim and his Social Democratic Party counterpart, Adewole Adebayo, have berated the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Government over the naira redesign policy and its implementation.

The presidential hopefuls were guests on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics wondered why President Muhammadu Buhari and the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele failed to carry the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed along in its fiscal and monetary policies.

“We don’t see the minister of finance. It looks like a one-man deal or one-man trade between the CBN governor and his boss, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Where is the minister?

“Fiscal and Monetary Policy Committee should be sitting with the President giving the country confidence, we are not seeing that. And there seems to be an internal battle between those two organisations and the minister of finance is the boss of the CBN governor,” Ado-Ibrahim said.

READ ALSO: Reps Committee Rejects Naira Swap Extension, Threatens Emefiele’s Arrest

The YPP candidate described the policy as a great idea but a badly executed one, saying that it looks too political and this does not give confidence to the people.

On his part, the SDP candidate said there is no planning behind the naira swap.

“There is no planning, there is no definition of the stakeholders, there is no project management parameters, no timeline, and no simulation done. The process is not supposed to be chaotic, the economy is a sensitive thing and you must balance it.

“The currency is so central to the economy because the currency is the means of exchange and the central bank is not supposed to allow itself to be subject for political interpretation.

“So, even this idea of going to the President to take permission for extension, there is a board of governors for the central bank, it is supposed to be an internal business of the central bank,” Adebayo said.

The SDP candidate added that he wouldn’t want the central bank to look like an extension of the politics of Nigeria, not just for the sake of the governor who is there now but for the sake of the situation itself.