Percy Onyeka
To strengthen the naira against the dollar, human rights activist, Femi Falana has advised the Federal Government to join economic bloc BRICS and sell the Nigerian crude to foreigners in naira and not in dollars.
Recall Vice President Kashim Shettima was at the 15th BRICS Summit in South Africa where he revealed that Nigeria didn’t apply to join the economic bloc considered to be a counterweight to western powers like the United States.
But, according to Falana, it was time Nigeria joined the economic bloc to help the naira.
“There are countries in the world today insisting that we are not going to be tied to the American dollars and those countries are in the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa,” he said on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Tuesday.
“Others are joining them; Saudi Arabia has joined them. UAE, Ethiopia, Egypt and all that. We cannot be more Catholic than the Pope. If friends of the West are joining BRICS, why are we not there? So that we can trade in naira,” he noted.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria also said the government is dancing around the problem, saying that the circulars by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) won’t solve the forex challenges.
“If I had my way, my own radical policy would be that: I would sell Nigerian gas and crude oil in naira. Let those who want to buy our products look for naira. That is how to promote your currency.
“But this business of everybody looking for dollars even to pay school fees, rent houses, and sell houses. It doesn’t happen unless you dollarize your economy. These are the issues the government would have to address to come out of this economic doldrums,” he said.
Falana also urged for the government to depend less on the economic forecasts and policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
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