Nigeria Legislator Proposes Closure of Domiciliary Accounts to Save the free-falling National Currency

Nigerian legislator Ibrahim Obanikoro has called on the Nigerian government to close all domiciliary accounts for the next 12 months temporarily. Such action, when taken, will help to lessen pressure on the national currency Naira, which has seen more than 10% depreciation in the last two months.

The Naira's value keeps nose-diving.

Obanikoro made this call approximately two weeks after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) compelled Abokifx to stop publishing foreign exchange rates as obtainable in the parallel markets - an act that had no positive impact on Naira in any way.

This is a desperate time for the Nigerian Naira. Unfortunately, unusual solutions like the one proposed by Obanikoro seemed very likely as all stakeholders are deeply worried by the Naira situation.

On September 28, Obanikoro released the statement below from his Twitter handle.

"I am not the Central Bank of Nigeria [CBN] Governor, but at this moment, I’m of the opinion that CBN should mandate that all dorm accounts be closed for the next 12 months. Let’s see the effect on the naira. After all, you can’t go to any of the Western worlds and open a foreign currency account. Your opinion."

The Legislator Receives a Backlash

Obanikoro's tweet received a lot of criticisms from Twitter users.

Cryptocurrency Thought Leader responded by saying:

“Satoshi looked through history and decided to create this alternative for us.” He ended by predicting that the Naira will drop to $1 for every NGN1000.
Orisha, another Twitter user, acknowledged Obanikoro's effort to solve the Naria issue but warned against closing domiciliary accounts.

According to him,

"This idea can work, but you can’t just close people dom account, but only mandate them to withdraw all their $ from the account within let’s say 4month max. Will the North and Naija Elites allow you to destroy banks & bureaux de change [BDC]?”

Other Twitter users urge that the root causes of the free fall of Naira should be unveiled rather than merely scratching the surface.