The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said it is illegal to use naira to buy dollars for the purpose of electioneering campaigns.
The bank made the clarification following what it described as attempts by some people to deliberately misrepresent the caution by the governor of the apex bank, Godwin Emefiele, on electioneering spending by the political class.
Emefiele, at post-Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting briefing, had warned bank customers against converting the naira to foreign exchange for electioneering purposes.
“For those who want to use the naira to buy dollars because of election, I want to warn, not advise, that it is illegal to do so. Whereas it will sound more convenient that you should carry dollars because it has a lot of value in your pocket.”
“But if the security agencies hold you, you know the implication of that, we would continue from our side. We have our apparatus through which we monitor the movement of funds between customers or between banks and customers from one bank to the other bank.
“Any bank that we find in those types of transactions that we consider to be unauthorised or that we consider to be illegal. You can imagine that your account will be placed on post no debit (PND),” he had warned.
In a chat with newsmen on Wednesday, the Bank’s Director, Corporate Communications Department, Mr. Osita Nwanisobi, maintained that the warning by the CBN governor was to those who sought to convert the naira from their accounts into foreign exchange for election campaigns and not those who seek to exchange the currency for legitimate purposes such as payment for tuition and other personal expenses.
Reiterating the bank’s position, he said the CBN also frowned at the conduct of unauthorised movements of funds within and outside the country and would use tools at its disposal to check the movement of illicit funds.
While maintaining that the bank, in line with its mandate, had discretionary power to prevent people from conducting unauthorised transactions, Nwanisobi said the CBN was within its statutory limits to mop up the excess liquidity in the vaults of the institutions it regulates, so they do not get involved in speculative activities.
