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Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has blamed the administration of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari for destroying the value of the naira through reckless monetary policies, including the printing of N22.7 trillion under the guise of “ways and means.”
Dogara made the revelation in a viral video clip circulated on Tuesday, where he detailed how Buhari’s economic decisions plunged Nigeria into its current financial crisis.
According to him, President Bola Tinubu inherited a “wrecked” economy made worse by Buhari’s indiscriminate printing of trillions of naira, the controversial dual exchange rate regime, and mortgaging of crude oil sales for foreign loans.
“By the time President Tinubu took office, the economic debris of this nation had become too conspicuous to be ignored,” Dogara said.
“N22.7 trillion; we are all journalists here, we know this had been printed and injected into the economy in the name of ways and means, thereby destroying the value of the naira in our pockets.”
The former Speaker accused the Buhari administration of institutionalising economic sabotage by creating a dual foreign exchange system that favoured a select few.
“The dual exchange rate meant that some anointed people were making hundreds of millions of naira of forex allocations from the CBN without producing any goods or offering any services whatsoever,” he added.
Dogara further condemned the practice of tying crude oil sales to foreign loans through “forward sales” arrangements, describing the measure as fraudulent and unsustainable.
“Tying our crude sales to foreign loans in the name of forward sales of crude was fast becoming the order of the day. Some of the foreign loans had been procured in order to help strengthen the value of the naira, a measure that could only be sustained by what experts call voodoo economics,” he said.
Human rights activist Omoyele Sowore had also accused Buhari and the former Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele of deceiving Nigerians regarding the newly designed naira notes in 2022.
Buhari unveiled the new notes before the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the State House, Abuja, in November 2022.
Following the unveiling, Sowore noted on his Facebook page that the new designs had only changed the colours.
He said, “@GodwinIEmefiele of the @cenbank and @MBuhari just played Nigerians over the fraudulent so-called redesign of the Naira. Nothing was “redesigned” just a change of dye. Crooks! #WeCantContinueLikeThis.”
