The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Reparations and Repatriation, Senator Ned Nwoko has renewed his agitation for a ban on the use of the United States (US) Dollar and other foreign currencies as means of exchange and payments for goods and services in Nigeria.

Nwoko who spoke at a media parley at the weekend said there was an urgent need to prohibit the use of foreign currencies in Nigeria because their presence and apparent dominance in the financial system has relegated the local currency, the Naira to the background and impacted negatively on the latter?s value.

The lawmaker who represents Delta North Senatorial District at the National Assembly said the use of the Dollar, Pound Sterling and other foreign currencies was a colonial hangover which shows that though Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1960, but was yet to attain economic independence sixty for years later.

He said that he had remained passionate about the idea because the proposed ban holds the key to Nigeria?s economic freedom and growth. The lawmaker who drew a nexus between the value of the Naira and the state of the economy said Nigeria cannot achieve prosperity if the citizens continue to place a premium on foreign currency rather than promoting the use of their local currency.

According to him, the poor state of the Nigerian economy had been largely responsible for the myriad of social vices such as terrorism, banditry, kidnapping armed robbery and the general state of insecurity in the country.

?I?m just trying to link it up with the economy and crime because both of them go hand in hand. The more people are comfortable and richer, the less crime. The more hungry and desperate they are, the more crime.

?It?s just like that. Do you think somebody will give me a gun now and say come and rob a bank? Or cone and become a bandit or a kidnapper? No. I cannot and I will not because of my background and level.

?We say the economy is bad; we say there is banditry; we have Boko Haram, we have ISWAP, we have ESN and all other groups here and there.

?I?ve said that there is only one solution that I know. It is not by giving the military more guns to go and kill our fellow citizens. No. It is not by locking some of them up in Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison or the Kuje Medium Security Prison. No. That is not what all stops the side from anarchy We can look at the one-stop-shop solution to the problem.

?I keep talking about it because I?ve seen it work around the world. If you go to the United Kingdom, United States of America or France, the only currency they use in those countries are their local currencies.

?Dollar is a global currency. From the time when we gained our independence or they gave us freedom as it were, invariably our people did not understand that we got political independence but we don?t have economic independence.

?Economically, we are totally dependent on the West and that?s our problem. How does WD depend on them? They made us use their currencies but we have never been able to convince any of them to use our own currency.

For our economy to improve and for you guys to live well, and comfortably, so that even when they pay you N200,000 or whatever they pay you, you can live on it. For that to happen, the Naira must become a global currency. What does that mean? It means that if you have your N10,000 and you are in America or the United Kingdom, you can exchange it into their currencies for you to use.

?Currently, you can?t do that. Nobody is stopping you from taking Naira to London; you can carry it on your head if you like; you can put it in a box if you like, but if you get to London and you give it to them, it is of no value. If fact one you leave they will throw it into the waste bin because it has no value.

?Your money has no value beyond the borders of Nigeria. So the solution is to make our currency global. Our currency must be given that support. To put it in a layman?s language, our currency is the symbol of our sovereignty and dignity. It is the symbol of our nationality and of who we are but it has no value because we have relegated it to the background and allowed the other currencies to become a status symbol in our country.

?What this means is that in Nigeria, a British man who is trading in crude oil or gas if he is buying $200m worth of crude oil, he will simply send to you his Pounds Sterling or its equivalent in Dollars. They will send their own currency and we will accept it. We are not going to tell them to change it to Naira. So the system is faulty because we accept payments in their currency for what they are buying from us. What happens is that we have demeaned our own currency, the Naira. The Naira has become second class citizen among other currencies.,? he said.

It would be recalled that Nwoko had earlier in the year proposed a bill to prohibit the discriminatory use of foreign currency payment for remuneration, services or transactions for individuals, entities, banks, limited liability companies or corporations within Nigeria.

?The bill which has passed the first reading stage seeks to completely eras the anomalies associated with such payments which, according to him, have contributed heavily to the free fall of the Naira with its reverberating effects on the economy and general standard of living in Nigeria. (Sunday Telegraph)

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