Nigeria’s Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Ameachi was caught on tape admitting that President Muhammadu Buhari has always ordered the Central Bank of Nigeria to keep printing money since the APC assumed office in 2015.
President Buhari who vowed to revamp the Nigerian economy in his campaign promises has been criticized for worsening the economic situation of the country over the past six years of his regime.
In an interview with journalists prior to the 2019 general elections in which Mr. Buhari was re-elected, Mr. Amaechi disclosed that they (Nigerian politicians) swore an oath never to publicly admit to Nigerians that the government was on a printing spree of the national currency;
“And most of you didn’t know at the time we took over, most Nigerians don’t even know because we have sworn to an oath not to tell anybody we were printing money,” Mr. Amaechi said.
“Do you know when a country prints money? When it has no money at all,” he said. “We were just printing money to pay the debt.”
Mr. Amaechi’s comments further exposed the cover-up that has followed Mr. Buhari’s widely condemned approach to the country’s economy, as millions of citizens continue to plunge into poverty. Nigeria has since emerged as the country with the highest number of poor people in the world. The country also has the poorest electricity supply, and the second country with the most jobless people worldwide.
Earlier this year, renowned credit rating institution Fitch said the Nigerian central bank under Mr. Buhari has been printing money at an alarming rate, warning that such tactics could engender additional economic woes for the country’s 200 million people.
Last month, Governor Godwin Obaseki expressed concerns on crude oil revenue, disclosing that the federal government printed an extra N60 billion for states to share in March.
