A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, said on Friday that the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, deceived Nigerians with the implementation of the new naira design. In an interview with Channels Television, Keyamo claimed Emefiele told the public that the CBN would carry out a currency swap, but the outcome was effectively a confiscation of people’s money.
“There was a grand deception. You said it was a currency swap; what you are doing is currency confiscation. It’s not a swap. A swap means I bring N1,000 and you give me N1,000, or I bring N5,000 and you give me N5,000 of the new notes,” Keyamo explained. “But you told us all to deposit all our money. At that time we deposited everything, yet the new notes were not available. Citizens should have insisted on the availability of the new notes before depositing the old ones.”
He added, “What happens to financial freedom? You have confiscated my money and denied me the right over my money. That was the grand deception they sold to everybody.” Keyamo also noted that, although President Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) had good intentions for the naira redesign, the policy was poorly advised.
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