THE long-drawn battle between the former governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole, and the
former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Professor Charles Soludo, was rekindled at the Vanguard Economic Discourse held in Lagos yesterday.
Oshiomhole, responding to Soludo’s criticisms of the current foreign exchange policy which he said was opened to abuse, round-tripping and corruption, claimed that the same scenario was applicable in Soludo’s regime at CBN.
He specifically alleged that under Soludo, two first generation banks were given privileged allocation of foreign exchange just a day before the apex bank devalued the Naira, thereby, giving the said banks opportunity to make huge and quick profits from a new exchange rate.
Oshiomhole also lampooned Soludo’s pet programme, the National Economic Empowerment
and Development Strategy (NEEDS), saying that it failed.
However, in his response to the allegation, Soludo lamented what he saw as outright mischief or ignorance on the part of Oshiomhole.
He stated: “We have laid out the framework, the situation is there, millions of people are out of jobs, we can’t trivialise it with jokes and unfounded personal attacks.
“I am not going to dignify such with any response, but there is one I must respond to, and that is the point made by my good friend Adams Oshiomhole.
“I have to respond to that on a point of facts, two things, the first is that the NEEDS was for 2004 to 2007. For the record, I left office 2009, we are fond of, in this country, when you don’t have the facts you invent your own. I think we can have a debate someday about what NEEDS achieved vis-a- viz its target between 2004 and 2007. That is for another day. But I don’t want to get into that now.
“Second is when Adams made the point about exchange allocation to two banks. I think that is very specific that I need to respond to directly.
“Adams Oshiomhole has lied, that is the first thing; I didn’t say he misquoted anything; he has lied, and I want to state that for the record.
“At the turn of 2008 financial crisis, we had an option, we built the re serve to unprecedented level in Nigeria, and we had the liberty to defend the Naira.
In fact, I could have left office with Naira being less than a N100 to the Dollar, because we had watched
The post At Vanguard Economic Discourse: Soludo, Oshiomhole clash over forex appeared first on Vanguard News.
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