A former spokesperson for ex-Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Laolu Akande, has called for legal action against those involved in the printing of N22.7 trillion ($50 billion) by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) between 2015 to 2023, under former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Akande described the situation as an “economic calamity” and demanded that those responsible “be made to answer in court”.
Akande was the chief spokesperson to Osinbajo, who was the vice president during the period the money was printed.
He expressed concern that the issue could be swept under the rug and urged the current government to take action beyond simply complaining.
Although Akande said the CBN granting Ways and Means to the Nigerian government was not necessarily bad, he said the scale at which it was done without a corresponding uptick in productivity in the country was “shocking”.
“We must ensure that this does not happen again…there must be consequences,” Akande said on Channels TV’s Sunrise on Thursday.
“Everyone that is involved in this calamity, which is an economic calamity, They must be made to answer in court. We dont want a situation where the case has died, it is going to repeat itself.”
He said while there fears about the “misbehaviour of the monetary institution” before the end of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, he had no idea that “things were that terrible”.
“There was nobody in that administration that did not have an idea of how things were going…the shoddiness, the sloppiness, lack of patriotism,” Akande told Channels TV.
Akande’s statement came after Finance Minister Wale Edun linked the printed money to Nigeria’s current hyperinflation.
Edun blames the “eight years of just printing money not matched by productivity” for the economic woes.
The Senate had previously resolved to investigate N30 trillion ($66 billion) in Ways and Means funding spent by the Buhari administration.
It said the funds were mismanaged and contributed to the country’s food and security issues.
Edun confirmed plans to audit how the funds were expended and pledged to use revenue generated from a recent N7 trillion ($15 billion) bond issuance to repay the central bank and restore fiscal balance.
