Senator advises FG not to play politics with exchange rate, economy

A former federal lawmaker, who represented Kwara South Senatorial district at the 8th senate, Senator Rafiu Adebayo Ibrahim has stressed the need to relegate politics to the background and allow economics to rule and reign when it comes to the naira exchange rate.

Senator Rafiu Adebayo Ibrahim, who was the chairman, senate committee on banking, insurance and other financial institutions 8th National Assembly (2015-2019) made the call at the 30th media parliament of Kwara state council of the Nigeria Union of Journalist (NUJ) in Ilorin.

The theme of seminar:”Naira Devaluation by Central bank of Nigeria: How did we get here? What are the challenges and prospects for us as a nation?

According to him, the federal governmentshould allowing the market forces to determine its fair value both at the time of boom and otherwise.

“The federal government should stop paying lip service to instituting a concrete savings culture at all levels of government; federal, state and local

“As an individual, when one consume all it’s income and fail to save, he or she will be feeding from hand to mouth and will always be vulnerable anytime that there is drought because he or she have no savings to fall back on.

“It is time to diversify the economy under a truly long-term strategic plan that will turn around the fortunes of the nation away from being mono-product as is presently the case.

“It is time to promote local production and industrialization, particularly of products that are highly in demand within the country

“It is time to address the incessant insecurity that is eating deep into the economic life of the nation, as the devastating effects of the situation, if unattended, will make the value of the nation’s currency worse than we all can imagine,” he said.

“The above, notwithstanding, I must say that there are no easy answers to this problem.

“However, having an economy that is not tied to the price of one product that is prone to wild price swings, is an obvious solution. It is one thing to want a diversified economy, it is another to actually work through the process and implement laid down plans to the letter.

“It is devastating to see the nation work slowly but steadily to move towards a market-determined foreign exchange system, as was the case during the regimes of Charles Soludo and Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, then due to the interference of politics in matters of economics, the gains of two decades are eroded in less than five years. As a nation, we should know that we cannot eat our cake and have it,” he said.

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