Again, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has reiterated that it has no plan to tamper with domiciliary accounts in banks. People doing these speculations should stop. As much as I do not have confidence in many things they do in Abuja [sample 1: the president is under the care of British doctors while in his country, the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) are on strike] the rumour of hostile takeover of dollars and euros in Nigeria makes no sense. Doing that is essentially declaring Nigeria frozen.
Yet, if CBN does do it, it would be a “war” against the 1%. More than 90% of bank deposits in Nigeria are controlled by just 2% of depositors: ‘Our current deposit insurance coverage is N500, 000 for the Deposit Money Banks. And some people have said that it is low. I can tell you that it is very adequate for the majority of accounts. It will interest you to know that it covers over 90 per cent of accounts in the country. Indeed, Nigerians who have more than N500, 000 in their accounts are just two per cent.’
From my extrapolation, I am not sure up to 10% of those 2% (who have $1,000 equivalent in their bank accounts) have any dorm account. So, these dorm account holders with at least a balance of $10,000 may be less than 0.1% of the total depositors and they are the real 1%. If CBN wants to go after them, everyone should look for a white flag of surrender because CBN (which represents Nigeria) will lose! The high voltage legal cases across all territories of the world against the Nigerian state would be unprecedented. So, that rumour should stop.
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What we need to focus on is to have a democracy where leaders lead. I am not happy that Buhari is under the care of British doctors when patients are dying because doctors are on strike in Nigeria. In a democracy that works, the National Assembly would have put heat on him. But here, it is all siddon-look.
But hope dey – heaven will remember Nigeria one day with a credible leader.
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My 100 level first room mate died yesterday because they could not get access to a good hospital promptly. We need to fix a lot of things here fast, else we would not grow.
Honestly, Buhari is a failure!
“Again, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has reiterated that it has no plan to tamper with domiciliary accounts in banks.”
I am pretty sure they have and probably will, as evidenced by: 1) The weird official differentiation between FX cash deposit influxes and transfers, 2) Dollar MasterCards being limited to max transactions of $1,000 with no notification.
Limiting domiciliary accounts’ ability to transact in otherwise universally accepted ways counts as tampering, not matter how minor, in my book. It’s only a small step to saying, you must sell your dollars to only us or some similar rule.
Moreover, the fact CBN is denying brings to mind previous denials of devaluation. The CBN isn’t exactly a honest actor, and seizure of FX has happened in other African climes, notably Zimbabwe. The question is to what extent and severity will they tamper with domiciliary accounts.
I gather your opinion is they won’t go beyond placing minor impediments. Nevertheless, I am waiting and watching to see what happens.
Great points. Nigeria Naira will not be saved by CBN but by factories and warehouses. That is the only constant I think. So, CBN is just doing what it thinks while we hope one day a REAL leader will come to fix this country. We need a President that will lead with energy!
How many Nigerians truly breathe Nigeria? Some might think destroying Nigeria would bring them fulfilment, but they are wrong.
When we call for National Conference, rather than focusing on how to govern ourselves within our means, we end up dominating the discussions with how to create more political offices and expand bureaucracy, and we keep depreciating.
Rather than growing patriots, we are growing and scaling sycophants at a terrific speed. People can now say or do anything against Nigeria, it doesn’t matter how damaging it is, that is if they are even aware of the mayhem they have been creating.
Who taught us to see public service as where you become astonishingly rich? Yet we keep entrenching that false belief, so everyone is working hard on how to steal Nigeria blind and strip it of every honour.
Nigeria will train young doctors with its resources, and upon graduation – majority will be looking for oversea country to settle in, and the motivation? Better pay, favourable environment. Makes a great argument on the surface, but if Nigeria must pay you like you could be paid elsewhere, then you do not love Nigeria.
Why are we having strikes from education to health sector? Because our political class has created the impression that there’s too much money in the land, so everyone wants a cut.
Buhari’s spokesman said the president has been using the UK doctors for 40 years, so they are probably the only ones that can cure his mysterious ailments; but what he didn’t mention was who has been footing the bills for those decades.
This thing called nation building, we do not have even 1% of Nigerians that are willing to make the monumental sacrifices needed to build a working nation; forget the pretenses, both on the part of leaders and citizens.