Documents obtained by Gatekeepers News has revealed that Mr. Godwin Emefiele, the detained Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is not the architect of the Naira redesign policy.
According to Gatekeepers News reports, the Acting Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Folashodun Adebisi Shonubi, has been unveiled as the architect of the controversial Naira redesign policy of the apex bank during the regime of former President Muhammadu Buhari according to a memo seen by Gatekeepers News.
It was dated August 2022 and approved by Shonubi, who was then the Deputy Governor in charge of Operations.
According to the memo (attached below), Shonubi worked with Governor of the CBN, Godwin Emefiele, on the policy.
Gatekeepers News said it gathered that the memo prompted Emefiele to set up a task force for the redesign of the Naira.
While Emefiele was the Chairman of the task force, Shonubi and Aisha Ahmad, the Deputy Governor of Financial System Stability, served as Co-Chairmen.
Hoarding, shortage, high counterfeit risks and high cost of printing banknotes were listed as reasons for the necessity of redesigning the notes.
Emefiele has however received opprobrium and scorn for the failure of the policy which the CBN adduced to sabotage by politically exposed persons and compromised commercial bank officials.
Then President Buhari had given marching oders to the EFCC, DSS and CBN for the saboteurs to be fished out anf dealt with but no significant arrests and prosecutions were made.
BRANDPOWERreports that, according to the apex’s bank recently released financial statements, the CBN spent N29.65bn on currency issue expenses in 2022, a 94.66 per cent increase from the N15.23bn it spent in 2021.
In 2022, the total amount in circulation was N3.01tn, a 9.47 percent decline from the N3.32tn that was in circulation in 2021. In 2020, the total cost incurred on printing of bank notes was N58.62bn, a 28.83 per cent decrease from the N75.52bn that was recorded in 2019 according to the bank’s ‘2020 Currency Report.’
Until his elevation to Acting-Governor of the CBN, Shonubi had been Deputy-Governor was in charge of operations at the institution. He also represented Emefiele as a member of the board of the Federal Inland Revenue Service – a role he held since December 2019.
The 61-year-old has had a stellar career in Nigerian banking with a combined experience of over three decades in the banking and engineering sectors.
