Chairman of the Senate Committee on Reparations and Repatriation, Senator Ned Nwoko, PDP, Delta North, has reiterated his call for a ban on the use of the United States Dollar and other foreign currencies as means of exchange and payment for goods and services in Nigeria.
According to Nwoko, the use of foreign currencies in Nigeria, their prevalence, and dominance in the financial system have sidelined the local currency, the Naira, causing a negative impact on its value. He emphasized that his passion for this idea stems from the belief that the proposed ban holds the key to Nigeria’s economic freedom and growth.
Speaking with journalists over the weekend, Senator Nwoko noted the urgent need to prohibit the use of foreign currencies in Nigeria, describing the use of the Dollar, Pound Sterling, and other foreign currencies as a colonial hangover. He explained that while Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1960, it has yet to achieve economic independence, even 60 years later.
The senator, who drew a connection between the value of the Naira and the state of the economy, stressed that Nigeria cannot achieve prosperity if its citizens continue to place value on foreign currency instead of promoting the use of the local currency.
Nwoko also linked the poor state of Nigeria’s economy to various social vices such as terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery, and the general state of insecurity. He said, “I’m just trying to link the economy and crime because both go hand in hand. The more people are comfortable and richer, the less crime. The hungrier and desperate they are, the more crime. It’s just like that. Do you think someone will give me a gun now and say, ‘come and rob a bank’ or ‘become a bandit or kidnapper’? No. I cannot and I will not because of my background and level.”
He continued, “We say the economy is bad; we say there is banditry; we have Boko Haram, we have ISWAP, we have ESN, and all other groups here and there. I’ve said that there is only one solution that I know. It is not by giving the military more guns to kill our fellow citizens. No. It is not by locking some of them up in Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison or Kuje Medium Security Prison. No. That is not what will stop the slide into anarchy. We can look at a one-stop shop solution to the problem.”
“I keep talking about it because I’ve seen it work around the world. If you go to the United Kingdom, United States of America, or France, the only currency they use in those countries is their local currency. The dollar is a global currency. From the time we gained our independence, or they gave us freedom as it were, our people did not understand that we got political independence but not economic independence. Economically, we are totally dependent on the West, and that’s our problem. How do we depend on them? They made us use their currencies, but we have never been able to convince any of them to use our own currency.”
“For our economy to improve and for you guys to live well and comfortably, so that even when they pay you N200,000 or whatever they pay you, you can live on it, the Naira must become a global currency. What does that mean? It means that if you have your N10,000 and you’re in America or the United Kingdom, you can exchange it for their currencies to use.”
“Currently, you can’t do that. Nobody is stopping you from taking Naira to London; you can carry it in your hand or put it in a box, but when you get to London and offer it to them, it is of no value. In fact, once you leave, they will throw it into the waste bin because it has no value.”
