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Lai Omotola, the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CFL Group of companies, has urged President Bola Tinubu to issue an executive order prohibiting all cash-dollar transactions throughout Nigeria as a strategy to preserve the Naira.
Speaking at a press briefing in Maryland, Lagos, Omotola proposed that all dollar transactions should be conducted exclusively between banks, and suggested that the maximum amount of cash any individual or foreigner could possess in Nigeria should be limited to $100.
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Amounts exceeding this threshold would automatically be forfeited to the Federal Government. Omotola also recommended a complete prohibition of street vending of dollars.
“To save our Naira, we propose that the President signs an executive order banning all cash-dollar transactions across the length and breadth of Nigeria. All transactions should now be bank to bank.
The maximum cash any citizen and foreigner can hold should not be more than 100 dollars. Any amount exceeding this will be automatically forfeited to the Federal Government. There should be a total ban on street vending.”
The business mogul, addressing the precarious state of the nation’s economy, argued that the dual policy of fuel removal and the floating of the Naira had led to economic depreciation.
He suggested granting amnesty to anyone paying in cash dollars for the next 90 days, with such cash lodgments exempt from probes by the EFCC or any security agency.
Additionally, Omotola recommended the adoption of a 100% cashless policy in five commercial states in Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), along with activating the Whistleblowers Act to reward those revealing hidden dollars.
He specified that Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, Rivers, Enugu, and Abuja should go 100% cashless, with the maximum amount of cash allowed in these states not exceeding N50,000.
Omotola believed that these measures, combined with discontinuing the continuous printing of new notes in favor of old ones, would lead to a 50% appreciation of the Naira within 30 days and a true value emergence by the end of the year.
