SANUSI DESTROYING NAIRA, GOING THE WAY OF OLD GHANA

Ghana currencies

Nigerian Currencies

Further to my publication on August 10, 2012 about the plan of Central Bank of Nigeria to release new currency, the N5000 denomination into circulation, the Nigerian Central Bank governor did announce yesterday that the new note will come into circulation in early 2013.  The CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi pointedly said that international best practice is to review country’s currencies between every five (5) and eight (8) year but fails to state which direction the review will be focusing. He submitted that this idea is in tandem with the CBN cash less policy of reducing the cost of currency management. His reasons:

(a) To minimize cost of managing cash

(b) To prevent Dollarization

(c) To reduce volume of Bank notes

Furthermore, he stated that by the reason of this policy, we shall end up having 12 currencies in circulation: 6 coins and 6 notes. The coins will be 50k, N1, N2, N5, N10, N20 while the notes will be N50, N100, N200, N500, N1000, and N5000. He specified the ages of  our current note as follows: N100- since 1999,  N200 since 2000, N500 since April 2001, and N1000 since 2005. In addition, in front face of the new N5000 will Margret Ekpo, the pioneer female politician in the first republic, Olufunmilayo Ransome-Kuti, an Abeokuta women right activist and
Hajiya Gambo Sawaba while the back will be National Assembly edifice. He also allayed fears of possible inflationary tendency due the new note saying Nigerian inflation is rather monetary.

As far as I am concerned, Naira is dying. Sanusi is going the way of old Ghana. Our currency is losing its taste and will soon be trampled upon sooner or later as a salt that has lost its taste.  Naira is dying not a natural death but a clear broad daylight murder by an ill-focused man and Jonathan’s Administration is keeping quiet. Some questions are pertinent here.

• · When last did you the reader see Nigerian’s 10k, 50k, N1 and these are our legal tenders and still existent.
• Was this not in opposition to what former CBN governor Soludo planned to do when he wanted to knock of some digits from our currencies?

Inference could be drawn from what Mallam Sanusi said and implied that it is very long overdue to act on all our current currencies.  Mallam Sanusi is very weak in learning from history.  Nigeria is a peculiar country. What happens in other western countries may not be feasible here. In effect, what we need is specialized policies at the moment whose workability is highly probable and not importing foreign polices at random. Nigerians have stone apathy handling coins and that is why you seldom see coins in circulation. Because of this, price of ordinary commodity will by default start with the first naira note and Sanusi is saying it will not hike our already galloping 2 digit inflation.

We are now following the old step of ‘OLD GHANA’ which they have since retraced seeing that the end thereof is death. Ghana used to have what we are having today. Before July 2007, their maximum note was GH₵ 10,000. Guess what Bank of Ghana Governor did, they redenominated their currency by removing some digits from them and Cedi today has its highest currency as GH₵50. Are they not managing the currencies today? OR Is this not another way of reviewing the currency after sometime as advised by international bodies which Sanusi claimed. Must review be increasing the digits? When former CBN Governor and former PDP governorship aspirant in Anambra state, Chukwuma Soludo wanted to redenominated naira, people were shouting and clamouring for his removal. Now, that Sanusi is planning to bring reproach to Nigerian people, nobody is talking. 

As a matter of urgency, Sanusi should be called to retrace his steps and rather re-denominate naira by knocking of some digits rather than embarking on this type of reform that eventually bring our economy to its knees. And for Goodluck Jonathan, he should be wake up from slumber, sit up and remove all the logs of wood that have sealed his eyes lately so that Nigeria can move forward.

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