President Buhari, this is how to save the Naira

President Muhammadu Buhari needs to act fast save the Naira and our economy from further depreciation. In Nigeria, we have a lot of economic saboteurs. Most past and present government officials, governors, ministers, and directors prefer to buy foreign currencies at whatever rate as it is impossible to keep millions of  naira in our banks […]

President Muhammadu Buhari needs to act fast save the Naira and our economy from further depreciation.
In Nigeria, we have a lot of economic saboteurs. Most past and present government officials, governors, ministers, and directors prefer to buy foreign currencies at whatever rate as it is impossible to keep millions of  naira in our banks for fear of exposure.
Most Letters of Credit (LC) and Form M applied for importation of various raw materials into the country are not realistic. Rather, they are a way of transferring loot abroad or under-invoicing.
And poor handling of the Naira by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has contributed to its depreciation because the CBN-led monetary policy gives room for saboteurs to do what they are doing continuously.
I call  here, as I have done in many instances, for the re-introduction of import licence to ascertain true importers of raw materials into the country. Government must ban importation of all sorts of junk into Nigeria, especially goods that we can produce locally.
President Buhari is a known voice against importation of items as toothpick. It is indeed disgusting that we should ever think of going abroad to bring in toothpick, however finely made it may be. I agree with Buhari that it is a national shame to suggest that we cannot produce whatever form of toothpick that we could need. On this score, it is a great thing that Buhari is president today. I like to believe that he will do something in line with his anger against our tendency as nationals to import mundane things. We urgently require a manufacturing culture that will turn us into innovators and makers of products both small and great.
There is need for the re-organization of Bureau de-Change by regulating and introducing laws to prosecute both the buyers and sellers who refuse to comply with the rules introduced by the government
I will suggest to the Buhari administration to fix N20 or N30 per dollar as once suggested by a former governor of the CBN. The administration should also allow floating rate of N1 to N3 for Bureau de-Change as practised in some countries. Whoever sells out of the floating rate must face a five year jail term as an economic saboteur. It is only when you start punishing these economic saboteurs that others will start to comply with the laws of the land. Let’s emulate the Chinese policy as it concerns treatment of economic saboteurs.
The economic summit being mouthed and which I suppose President Buhari will inaugurate should note that the fall in the price of crude oil affects all oil producing countries. We should wonder why it is that our national currency should be so badly affected.
The summit should find out why the currencies of other countries should be so relatively stable despite the global drop in the price of crude oil.
Alhaji Saleh Gacha Bade, an APC chieftain and retired banker, wrote from Kaduna.