By Emmanuel Nduka
Chairperson of Nigeria’s anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Abdulrasheed Bawa, and the Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Idris Jere, both met on Thursday over the foreign exchange crisis in the country.
This comes as forex speculators have been blamed for contributing to the free fall in the value of naira which saw it slumped into an all time low of N710 to a dollar in the last few weeks.
A tweet by the EFCC said Bawa and Jere held a “strategy” meeting on the issue behind closed door at the headquarters of NIS in Abuja on Thursday.
“Executive Chairman, EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa and Comptroller General, Nigeria Immigration Service, Idris Isah Jere, after a closed door strategy session Thursday, August 4, 2022 at the NIS Headquarters, Abuja, on improved synergy in the ongoing efforts to stem illegal Forex speculation by foreign nationals. #TowardsABetterNigeria #SayNoToCorruption,” the EFCC’s tweet read.
The meeting is sequel to a recent raid by EFCC operatives on Bureau-De-Change (BDC) operators’ hub in Wuse Zone 4 area of Abuja in search of currency speculators last Friday.
The agency invaded places occupied by the operators to arrest currency speculators who are alleged to be massively mopping up available foreign currencies.
While it was not clear if any of the currency exchangers were arrested, a source said the raid was a result of weeks of surveillance in which agents of the EFCC monitored the activities of the operators in the nighbourhood.
“The raid is a product of weeks of surveillance in which agents of the EFCC have been monitoring the activities of most of the Bureau de change operators in the Wuse 4 axis,” the source said.
The anti-graft agency is said to be working on intelligence that some forces with massive Naira inflow have mobilised resources and are busy buying up available foreign currencies especially the United States dollar for hoarding.
Nigeira’s apex bank, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had declared and warned that “taking money from banks to buy dollars” is illegal.
