The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says it cannot continue to sell dollars to people who purchase arms to hurt Nigerians.
In an emotion-ladden note betraying self-indictment, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, stated this on Friday after the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting which was held in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
Emefiele explained that the financial markets regulator is determined to eliminate the activities of illegal Forex traders.
According to him, the CBN remains the only national bank in the world that will dip its hand in the country’s reserve to sell dollars to Bureau de Change operators in the market.
“Nobody ever mentions the rate of Bureau de Change in the city of London. It really beats my imagination that Nigeria carried on with this kind of practice that tended to support illegal activities of people who are involved in graft and corrupt practices,” he said.
“We have supported the activities of those who illegally buy foreign exchange from this illegal market, carry them in aircraft out of the country and go to buy arms and ammunition and bring them into the country to commit crimes.
“We, the Central Bank, take our country’s dollars and sell to people to buy arms and ammunition to come and hurt us. That is what we are saying that people want us to do, we cannot do that any longer.”
This is a grossly belated policy measure from Emefiele, considering that financial intelligence reports have revealed this wickedness long time ago. If this clamp down had been done as detected years ago, terrorists and bandits would not have overrun parts of our country, as is currently the case.