Old statement used in misleading claim about currency policy in Nigeria

“I love the way CBN Governor, Yemi Cardoso is acting while not talking!! Report any institution demanding Dollars for payment in Nigeria,” reads part of a post published on X on February 4, 2024.

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A screenshot of the misleading post, taken on February 6, 2024

The post features a press statement supposedly published by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in recent weeks. A name, Ibrahim Mu’azu, with the designation of director of corporate communications, appears at the bottom of the statement with a signature. 

Shared more than 460 times, the post was published by an account that has a history of promoting content that supports Nigerian President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress. 

Since last May when Tinubu was sworn in as the country’s leader, Nigeria’s currency, the naira, has lost about 41 percent of its value against the US dollar on the official currency market and around 30 percent on the parallel market (archived here). 

Nominated by Tinubu in September 2023 (archived here), Cardoso’s reign as the governor of the CBN has been bogged down by volatile foreign exchange rates and rising inflation. 

To halt the naira’s free fall, the bank introduced several policies after Cardoso’s appointment, including prohibiting banks from operating international money transfer services (archived here). They are still permitted to act as agents of international money transfer operators, who could use them to facilitate such transactions.  

However, the claim that Cardoso banned the use of dollars in local transactions is misleading. 

Old statement from 2015

A keyword word search for the first paragraph of the statement in the posts led to a press statement published by the CBN more than eight years before Cardoso was appointed. 

The URL of the statement showed that it was published online in 2015 (archived here). Reports (here and here) in the local media indicated that the statement was issued in April of that year. 

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Screenshot showing the URL of the statement published on CBN’s website, taken on February 6, 2024

Citing the CBN Act of 2007, the bank said at the time that only the naira was “legal tender” for transactions in the country (achieved here).

Section 20(1) of the Act states that “The currency notes issued by the Bank shall be the legal tender in Nigeria at their face value for the payment of any amount.”

In Section 20(5), the Act stipulates a punishment for anyone who “refuses to accept Naira as a means of payment.”

The CBN reiterated these legal provisions in the 2015 statement and did not announce a ban on the use of US dollars as legal tender in the country, since it was already outlawed. 

Godwin Emefiele was the governor of the CBN at the time the statement was issued (archived here). 

Moreover, recent statements released by the bank were signed off by Hakama Sidi Ali, while the one in the misleading claim was issued by Ibrahim Mu’azu (archived here and here). 

Emefiele removed Mu’azu from his position as CBN’s director of corporate communications in 2016, and he has since retired (archived here).

Apart from Ali, at least three other people – Isaac Okorafor, Osita Nwanisobi and Isa Abdulmumin – have been in that position since Mu’azu’s departure (archived here and here).