Yakubu Dogara says foreign exchange stashed in private vaults in Nigeria

A former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, believes that by unlocking “idle” foreign exchange stashed in private vaults, the monetary authorities can strengthen wobbling naira.

Dogara, who was Speaker from 2015 to 2019, spoke on Wednesday at The Platform Nigeria, a programme by Lagos-based church, Covenant Nation, to mark the 2024 Democracy Day.

The event with the theme, ‘Democracy and the free Market Economy’ also has in attendance Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo; former Minister of Works, Babatunde Fashola; the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan-Kukah; among others.

The former lawmaker lamented that the insatiable appetite of Nigerians for the United States’ Dollars (USD) has been responsible for the steady decline in the value of the naira because “all shady and authentic deals are closed in USD”.

According to him, the US greenback has become the currency of choice of Nigerians and as long as we don’t kill our appetite for it, no appreciable value can be gotten.

With the naira tripping from about N800/$1 in May 2023 to about N1,500/$1 at the moment, Dogara said Nigerians have lost faith in the naira as a store of value and that the government should move fast to restore that faith.

“The USD is not going away anytime soon. The challenge before the government is how to unlock and make the USD locked up in private vaults in Nigeria begin to chase the naira. That to me, is the commonsensical solution. I believe we have enough dollars in this country that we can unlock to make our economy work and crash the FX rate,” he said.