BY BANYO TEMITAYO
GOVERNOR of the Central Bank of Nigeria, on Friday, reiterated his earlier statement that it would be irresponsible for any central bank not to support its Government at a time like this.
He said it was inappropriate for people to give undue colouration to printing of money as if it was a foreign phrase, stressing that printing money was a key function of central banks.
Emefiele, on the official Twitter handle of the CBN @cenbank on Friday, noted that printing money was about lending money.
He stressed that Nigeria was in a very bad situation and that he would not pretend about it.
“The concept of printing of money is about lending money and that is our job…It will be irresponsible for the CBN or any Central Bank or Fed to stand idle and refuse to support its government at a time like this. #Emefiele,” he said.
This reaction followed the exchanges between Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State and the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, over the former’s claim that the Federal Government printed N60bn to augment March allocation to states.
The Minister said no money was printed, describing Obaseki’s claim as falsehood and very sad, while the Edo Governor stood by his claim and advised the Federal Government to stop playing the Ostrich.
“Rather than play the Ostrich, we urge the government to take urgent steps to end the current monetary rascality so as to prevent the prevailing economic challenge from degenerating further,” he said on Thursday.
But Emefiele, at a press briefing on Thursday, said, “It is very inappropriate for people to just give some colouration to the word printing of money as if it is some foreign word coming from the sky..
“It is important for me to put it this way: The situation we find ourselves now is even worse than what we faced in 2015/2016–when we did provide budget support facilities for all the states in this country. That loan remains unpaid till now.”
“And we are going to insist on paying back those monies going forward, since they are accusing us of giving them loans. Effectively, that’s what they are saying,” he added.
The apex bank boss said most countries in the world were confronted with health challenges coming from the pandemic and economic crisis among others, noting, “It will be irresponsible for the central bank of Nigeria or any central bank or any Fed to stand idle and refuse to support its government at this time.”
“What is being done is being done in any clime. Nigeria is unfortunately in a very bad situation. I’m not going to pretend about it, in the sense that we are facing problems about productivity output which is GDP. We are also confronted with issues of inflation and prices and the rest of them,” he added.
