-by our correspondent.
Nigeria could be finding it difficult to exit the current recession in the first quarter of 2021 owing to poor economic policies of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
A former Nigerian Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, who said this on a TV programme monitored in Lagos, accused the government of usurping the independence of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by negatively influencing the policy direction of the Regulator.
“When you think in terms of monetary policies, the Central Bank of Nigeria has now become an annex of the Aso Villa in Abuja as the apex bank receives unhelpful instructions from the Villa since the President assumed office in May 2015.” Ezekwesili said.
Former Nigerian Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili
She noted that the political interference of the government in the decisions of the apex bank has contributed in no small measure to the huge depreciation of the Naira and the impoverishment of the masses.
In her words, “you can’t have sound monetary policy when your monetary authority is so badly politicized. The greatest tragedy of the last five years of the country has been the fact that there has been poverty of ideas in terms of economic management, the economic management of this administration has impoverished many more Nigerians.”
The former Minister decried the long period of closure of the country’s land borders by the President which she said was not necessary, as it negatively affected many Nigerian businesses and economic activities in the country.
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