Civil Rights Advocacy Group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has said that the National broadcast by president Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the wake of the nationwide #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria protests, is silent on the fundamental economic miscalculation of the government in floating the national currency thereby eroding, devaluing the Naira, creating price instability and instigated the immediate erosion of purchasing power of the currency.

Arguing that the policy of letting the Naira to float as was done by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration in a bid to satisfy conditionality imposed on his administration by World Bank and IMF so as to continuously award frivolous loans and credit facilities which are frittered in powering the ostentatious lifestyles of the persons in the corridors of power and pay allowances to political appointees, is a fundamental breach of the extant law that set up the Central Bank of Naira just as the Rights group argued that the adoption of the IMF and World Bank’s idea of devaluation of the Naira has diluted the sovereign rights of the federation.

HURIWA is of the considered opinion that no nation can comfortably claimed to be a Sovereignty when its national currency is left to the vagaries of the so-called market forces just as the Rights group affirmed that the mandate of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is derived from the 1958 Act of Parliament, as amended in 1991, 1993,1997,1998,1999 and 2007.

The CBN Act of 2007 of the Federal Republic of Nigeria charges the Bank with the overall control and administration of the monetary and financial sector policies of the Federal Government.

The Rights group further recalled that the fundamental objects of the CBN are as follows: ensure monetary and price stability; issue legal tender currency in Nigeria; maintain external reserves to safeguard the international value of the legal tender currency; promote a sound financial system in Nigeria; and act as Banker and provide economic and financial advice to the Federal Government.

HURIWA said the ill-conceived policy of floating the Naira against the Dollar/pounds which is at the root of the costs of living crisis in Nigeria was never addressed just as the Rights group said the statement that the price of 50kg rice is being brought down to N40,000 is a phantom story meant to deceive gullible Nigerians just as the Rights group said the statement that the protesters have a political agenda as claimed by the President is inaccurate because the mass hunger, deprivation and poverty that have pervaded millions of Nigerian households has no political connotations.

The rights group said It expected the president to speak on the unconstitutional deployment of lethal weapons to disperse crowds in places like Kano State where looting of public and private property took place instead if the use of rubber bullets, water canons and canisters but the President chose to forget about this major violation of the right to life of the citizens.

“The fact is that as we speak, the Nigerian people are facing unprecedented instability of prices of basic commodities to such a criminal extent that what you pay for an item wouldn’t be the same in another hour and the entire country runs in autopilot because the agencies of government that are statutorily created to maintain commercial sanity and price regulations have abandoned their mandates and since the value of the Naira keeps going down the drain, it is difficult for any sort of order to be in place in the regular markets that are frequented by Nigerians. This is the issue coupled with the inability of government to confront corruption that has made petrol unavailable and extremely high for millions of Nigerians to buy and power both their domestic and commercial activities.”

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