Just In : Obi reacts to EFCC’s raid on BDCs

Mr Obi said to keep the naira from falling, Nigeria has to migrate from a consumption to an export-led production economy.

The Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has berated the federal government over the raid conducted on Bureaux de Change (BDCs) operators, saying the action was “ill-advised and wrongly directed”.

Mr Obi’s reactions came after Nigeria’s anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) last Monday raided and arrested some BDC operators in the country.

The raid, PREMIUM TIMES understands, was executed to clampdown on individuals dollarising the Nigerian economy, a development that has seen the value of the naira falling to a record low against the United States dollar —- N1, 598.54 to $1 last week.

But Mr Obi, a former governor of Anambra State in a post on X on Sunday said the federal government strategy —- disrupting the activities of BDC —- will further escalate and worsen the already ballooned exchange rate in the country.

The BDCs, Mr Obi said, are not the primary suppliers of forex, neither do they create demand but only provide a market to sellers and buyers of foreign currency.

“They are part and parcel of every economy and can be found even in the developed economies of the world. To think that the BDCs are the cause of the declining value of the Naira is a smack on rational economic thinking.”

As a solution to the fall in the value of the naira against the dollar, the LP presidential candidate said the country has to migrate from a consumption economy to a production economy.

“The only way to shore up the value of our currency is to move the country from consumption to production, especially export-led production, and fight corruption, which allows unproductive money to pursue the available supply of foreign currency.

“As long as Nigeria remains an unproductive economy and corruption continues unfettered with people in possession of unproductive excess cash, the value of our currency will continue to depreciate.

“It’s important therefore that government authorities properly understand the workings of a modern economy and channel their efforts accordingly,” he said.