NAIRA REDESIGN: DOLLAR MAY CRASH TO N200 – EFCC BOSS

The chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa, says there is a possibility that the dollar may crash to N200 due to the ongoing redesign of the naira.

Recall that 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 in the country.

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.

But while speaking with the Radio Deutsche Welle, DW, Hausa Service, on Wednesday, the EFCC chairman said the move has since started yielding desired results.

Mr Bawa also 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,” he added.