Oshiomhole Blames Past Money Printing for Naira Collapse

Senator Adams Oshiomhole (Edo North) directly attributed the severe devaluation of the Nigerian naira to the excessive printing of money by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) during former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

Speaking at a Progressives Governors Forum meeting in Benin City on Saturday, Oshiomhole specifically criticized the use of the “Ways and Means” provision. This provision allows the Federal Government to borrow from the CBN to address short-term funding gaps.

Oshiomhole stated that the Senate has records showing over ₦31 trillion was printed under this policy. He dismissed the term “Ways and Means” as jargon obscuring what he described as simply “printing banknotes, not based on what we have earned or any resources.”

“This is what the immediate past CBN governor was doing,” Oshiomhole said. He compared the situation to historical hyperinflation in Zimbabwe and under Idi Amin in Uganda, where uncontrolled money printing rendered currency nearly worthless. “It is the result of that excessive printing of banknotes that led to the collapse of the naira,” he asserted.

The Senator argued that the root cause of Nigeria’s current high cost of living and exchange rate problems lies in this past practice. “You must trace it and locate it in terms of the excessive amount of banknotes through so-called Ways and Means, which the past government created and which this government has eliminated,” Oshiomhole stated.

He characterized the previous government’s borrowing as constant, saying Nigeria was “borrowing every day the way fish drink water.” Oshiomhole concluded that repaying these loans now falls to President Bola Tinubu’s administration as a necessary burden to safeguard Nigeria’s sovereignty.