Oshiomhole Blames Buhari-Era Money Printing for Naira Collapse

Senator Adams Oshiomhole, representing Edo North Senatorial District, has attributed the collapse of the naira to the excessive money printing by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration through the controversial Ways and Means policy.

Speaking on Saturday during a Progressive Governors Forum Meeting and Interactive Session in Benin City, Edo State, Oshiomhole criticized the past administration’s fiscal practices, likening Nigeria’s economic situation to the monetary crises of Zimbabwe and Idi Amin’s Uganda.

“We are coming from a country that was almost like Zimbabwe or Idi Amin’s Uganda, where he asked the Central Bank Governor to ‘go and print more money for us to share to the people’. And the Governor said, if we print more money, Uganda currency will be like a sheet of paper,” he remarked.

The former Edo State Governor and one-time President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) explained that the root of Nigeria’s current exchange rate crisis and high cost of living can be traced to the indiscriminate issuance of banknotes under the Ways and Means provision.

Oshiomhole argued that the policy led to unsustainable borrowing. “Nigeria was borrowing every day the way fish drinks water,” he said, adding that President Bola Tinubu is now saddled with the responsibility of repaying these loans to protect Nigeria’s financial sovereignty.

The Ways and Means provision permits the Federal Government to borrow from the CBN to cover short-term fiscal shortfalls. In 2024, the Senate set up an ad hoc committee to investigate the implementation of this provision alongside the CBN’s Anchor Borrowers Programme.