Keyamo said Emefiele told Nigerians that the CBN would be carrying out a currency swap but ended up confiscating people’s money.
By Jeffrey Agbo
Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari had good intentions for the naira redesign but was wrongly advised.
In an interview on Friday on Channels Television, the minister claimed the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, deceived Nigerians with the implementation of the new naira design.
Keyamo said Emefiele told Nigerians that the CBN would be carrying out a currency swap but ended up confiscating people’s money.
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Referring to Emefiele, Keyamo said, “There was a grand deception. You said it was currency swap, what you are doing is currency confiscation, it’s not swap. Swap is that I bring N1,000, you give N1,000. I bring 5,000, you give me N5,000 of the new notes.
“But you said all of us should deposit all our money. At that time we deposited all our money, the new notes were not available. I think that is where we also got it wrong as citizens. We should have insisted on the availability of the new notes before we deposited the old notes.
“What happens to financial freedom; you have confiscated my money, you have denied me the right over my money. That was the grand deception they sold to everybody.”