The Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in the just concluded general elections, Peter Obi, has decried what he described as the ‘dollarisation’ of the Nigerian economy.
Speaking during an interview which was monitored by Africa Today News, New York with Arise TV on Monday on the state of the country, Obi stated that the Naira should have been devalued.
He added that the use of the dollar in the country has led to unproductivity.
Obi said: ‘Dollar has become the underground currency of our economy; it shouldn’t be. We have a currency called the naira.
‘All the things people use dollars to do that are not productive should be removed.’
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‘I can assure you that when you remove it, it can strengthen the currency. Today, even when you want to do party primaries, people share dollars. That is not our currency.
‘There should be a stiff penalty in dealing with the issue. If people earn dollars legitimately, let them spend it the way they want.
‘However, it has now become a means of corruption and criminality in our system.’
Obi further stated that the country should work more on exports to strengthen the currency.
Obi had on Tuesday called on Nigerians not to despair over the agonising situation in the country after 63 years of nationhood, adding that citizens should be hopeful that a new Nigeria was possible.
The presidential candidate in the 2023 election explained that though the situation in the country might be critical, it was ‘certainly not hopeless.’
In an Obi-Datti press statement on Saturday, the LP candidate noted that the real reason Nigerians had remained mired in poor governance and poverty after 63 years was because successive administrations had attempted to suppress the people through their policies, actions and inactions.