Emefiele accuses politicians of hoarding new notes, says currency redesign reducing inflation

Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has accused some politicians of hoarding the redesigned naira notes.

The governor said the mop-up of notes by politicians has contributed to the lengthy queues at banking halls and automated teller machines (ATMs) as citizens struggle to lay their hands on the new naira.

Emefiele made the remarks while briefing the diplomatic community on recent monetary policy decisions of the CBN on Tuesday in Abuja.

“The CBN has also noticed that some politicians are buying the new notes and storing them for political purposes,” he said.

The CBN boss said there was tremendous tension and elevated agitation by leaders who should be calming frayed nerves by the citizens.

“We believe that a large proportion of these agitations are staged and sponsored propagandas or an exaggeration of the reality,” he said.

“No doubt that there are pockets of pressures in some areas, the CBN is working hard to shift resources to those areas in order to ease the tension.”

Speaking on the benefits of the currency redesign policy, the governor said inflation has started to reduce in the country.

Citing data from market sources, he said the price of ram has decreased from N75,000 to N50,000 since the policy was introduced.

“The policy is typically expected to cause deflation in the market as less cash holding reduces currency outside banks and retards money circulation,” Emefiele said.

“The accompanying decline in money supply will thus slow pace of inflation.

“As you can see, we have stated to witness inflation trending downwards, following general price stability in almost all genre of markets including for goods and financial products.

“For instance, analysis shows that an effective implementation of the policy could by itself scrape four percentage points off the current level of inflations as it steadily slows inflation rate to about 18.0 percent by mid-2023.

“This is quite achievable, as data from our market sources indicate that the prices of grains and key staples, around Suleja and Lambata markets for instance, have generally been on the downward trend since the beginning of the policy.

“The price for soya beans has dropped from N30,000 to N22,000. Maize from N18,000 to N16,000. The price of a bull fell from N400,000 to N330,000 and ram from N75,000 to N50,000.”