The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, on Monday said more items will soon be denied foreign exchange from government institutions and Nigeria banking industry.
He also said that the bank will not go back on the directive of President Muhammadu Buhari on food importation into the country.
President Muhammadu Buhari had on Tuesday in Daura, Katsina State, directed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to stop providing foreign exchange for importation of food into the country.
Speaking with State House correspondents at the retreat for ministers designate in the Presidential Villa, Emefuele alao said that Nigeria will move to get stay of action against the $9 billion judgement.
A British court had ruled on Friday that an engineering and project management company, Process and Industrial Developments Ltd., has the right to seize $9bn in Nigerian assets.
The ruling by Justice Butcher bordered on a 2010 contract Nigeria signed with P&ID, to the intent that the latter would build a state-of-the-art gas processing plant to refine natural gas (“wet gas”) into “lean gas” that Nigeria would receive free of charge to power its national electric grid.
On how far he has gone on the President’s directive, Emefiele said, “Let me say this, Mr. President’s comment on the issuing of forex to people who import food items into the country, is in the logic of CBN’s management foreign exchange policies that we started since 2016.
“If you recall, we started with about 41 items (food and non-food items), because we believe that those items can be produced in the country. As we stand today, there are about 43 items on that list and I will say substantially most of them are food items.
“We are basically saying if we have a food item that can be produced in the country, why should we waste scare foreign exchange importing those items into the country, when those can be produced in the country.
“It is important for me to say that the attempt to misrepresent the comments of Mr. President is very unfair and unfortunate. But, what we will say from the CBN is that Mr. President has made this comment purely to strengthen the position of the CBN, to say that he believes in what the CBN has been doing since 2016 and there is need for us to reinforce that going forward.
“I will say that to honest, we would aggressively go more into the list of items that are being imported into the country, items that can be produced in Nigeria.
I will like to stress that we would ensure that more of these items will get on the list of items that are going to be restricted from accessing foreign exchange in Nigerian banking industry not just from the CBN source.
“Because, I have heard some comments that maybe it’s about the CBN’s source, it is not the CBN’s source, we are saying you will not be able to access foreign exchange from the Nigerian banking industry because it is important for us to produce these items in Nigeria and we will follow through on them.”
Stressing that there will be no amendment to this policy, he said, “There will never be an amendment because the issue is this, why should we be exporting jobs to other countries? Today we are complaining that there is a high rate of unemployment, leading to some extent the level of insecurity in the country, why should we allow people to import food that can be produced in the country?
“We need to improve wealth in our rural communities and I am saying we will not change course, we will even be more aggressive on this Programme.”
Asked if the President’s directive won’t affect the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) which Nigeria just subscribed to, he said “It will not affect the content of the AfCFTA, in any case the AfCFTA is an agreement that is ongoing, the terms of engagement are still being discussed and negotiated.
“The important thing is that Nigeria needs to stand as the largest economy in Africa and the largest populated countries in Africa, we need to stand and dictate the terms under which we want to be in it and this is what we are staying. But what I am saying is that it is wrong, it is inappropriate that an item that can be produced in Nigeria should be imported into Nigeria.
“When we get into the AfCFTA issues we will also look at the details of it, but at this time we are saying we need to create jobs for our country, for the youths and we need to create jobs, we yearn for growth and the only way we can really accelerate growth in a Nigeria between now and next four years is to see to it that items that can be produced in Nigeria are indeed produced in Nigeria rather than being imported into the country.”
On the $9bn judgement debt, he said “I am not scared at all and I think it is also important that this question has come up. Since the news about the judgement broke out late on Friday, we have been discussing with our counsels, and they have advised that there are sufficient and strong grounds on the basis of which we could file a stay of execution and also an appeal against that judgement.”
