Falana Requests Timeline for Exchange Rate Unification

James Emejo

Human Rights Activist, Mr. Femi Falana, has asked the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to provide Nigerians with information on when it plans to end the multiple exchange regime and unify forex rates in the country.

Falana, in a letter to the apex bank, titled, “Request for Information on Abolition of Multiple Exchange Rates in Nigeria,” said he was making the request under the Freedom of Information Act, 2011.

The law requires the central bank to provide a response with the requested information not later than seven days upon the receipt of the letter.

The correspondence was written on May 24,  2022 and received at the CBN on May 31.

Falana recalled that while speaking at a virtual investors’ conference with the federal government organised by CitiBank on June 23, 2020, the Governor of the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele had disclosed that the various exchange rates would be unified around the I & E Window (NAFEX) exchange rate.

He said: “Furthermore, Mr. Emefiele dismissed activities in the parallel market as illegal business, adding that people patronizing the market are doing dealings that are not recognised by authorities.

“The CBN has always maintained that the black market is not a good determinant of the value of the naira. You’ll find that people who are in a hurry and do not want to procure the kind of documentation required, will sometimes rush to those markets. But we have used the period of this pandemic to prove that anybody dealing in that market is dealing in an illegal business.”

Falana also stated that the Minister of Finance and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, at the interactive session on the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Finance in Abuja on August 17, 2021, had also confirmed the plan of the central bank to unify the exchange rates in the country.

According to him, the minister had indicated that the policy would end the multiple exchange rates that had bedevilled the country.

“In view of the foregoing, we hereby request you to furnish us with information on the date fixed by the Board of the CBN to end the multiple exchange rates regime and unify the exchange rates in the country, ” the letter said.