A former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Adams Oshiomhole has blamed the severe depreciation of the naira on what he called “reckless” monetary policies of the past administration under President Muhammadu Buhari where the Central Bank of Nigeria printed money Indiscriminately.
The Senator representing Edo North in the National Assembly stated this while speaking at the Progressive Governors’ Forum’s (PGF) meeting in Benin City, on Saturday.
Oshiomhole said the CBN excessively printed money under its “Ways and Means” facility during the period, an arrangement he noted permitted the federal government to borrow from the apex bank for urgent needs.
The former Edo State governor likened the situation to past crises in Zimbabwe and Idi Amin’s Uganda, where printing unbacked currency caused devastating inflation.
He cited records from the Senate, indicating that over ₦31 trillion was printed under this facility.
According to Oshiomhole, such unrestrained printing of money, without corresponding economic output, triggered the naira’s collapse against the US dollar.
“This is what the immediate-past CBN governor was doing. They called it ‘Ways and Means,’ but in reality, it was indiscriminate printing of money to share and create an illusion of wealth,” Oshiomhole stated.
