The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has explained that it does not sell foreign exchange (FOREX) to individuals or groups, clarifying that it sells FOREX in wholesale to banks, which, in turn, resell to their customers at their discretion.

The CBN’s clarification followed multiple tweets by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Saturday claiming that the apex bank sold foreign exchange to aides of President Muhammadu Buhari at the official rate, who then allegedly resold at much higher rates at the parallel market.

CBN’s reaction came via the Twitter handle @UnofficialCBN, which “publishes publishes news & information about the Central Bank of Nigeria, Nigerian economy, monetary policies & the Naira, sourced from various news media.”

The tweets said:

CBN Source Reacts To PDP’s Tweets On Forex Sales...

1. @cenbank never sold dollars at N185 - $1. Devaluations were from N155 to N167 and N197.

2). CBN only does wholesale allocation to banks (Selling dollars to banks at wholesale). Only banks can determine customers they sell to.

3. That’s how the Wholesale Dutch Auction System works. @cenbank does not sell dollars to any individual or group directly.

4. Banks publish final recipients of dollars every week in all major newspapers as directed by the #CBN, so as to promote transparency.

5. So the PDP is only being mischievous and silly. What’s the big revelation?

6. How did PDP know how much the recipients sold the dollars in the open market even if they ended up doing so?

7. Simply another smear campaign by Gov. Emefiele’s detractors to connect his name to everything wrong, both imagined, fabricated, or real.

8. As Gov. Oshiomhole aptly and succinctly posited recently, these faceless persons will be unmasked soon as “palm wine drinkers!”

•Photo shows CBN Headquarters.

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