Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has said that the Federal Government must not allow the value of naira to be determined by criminal elements and market forces.
According to him, it is high time the naira was rescued from imminent collapse in the hands of powerful operators in the foreign exchange market.
Olawepo-Hashim stated this, yesterday, after he empowered about 200 residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) with N10 million as part of measures to cushion the present economic hardship.
Responding to a recent declaration by the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) that President Bola Tinubu has failed, Olawepo-Hashim said the President still has over three years to spend from his tenure, adding that Nigerians should rather pray for him.
The APC presidential aspirant in the 2023 elections said: “The best we can do is to pray and advise him (Tinubu). When the dollar rate was really getting out of hand, I made some intervention asking that we cannot leave the value of the currency to criminal forces, and they did some intervention and we have seen some changes, but they need to do more.
“You cannot leave the forex value to be determined by so-called market forces, especially when this market is controlled by criminal elements, who are doing round-tripping, and then to people who are buying dollars with money that are proceeds of laundering and kidnapping. So, you cannot allow the markets to determine the value of the currency.”
Stating that there was no reason the exchange rate should be as high as it is, the APC chieftain insisted that a more realistic value of naira against the dollar is what the government should target.
“I have a number that I think would be more realistic, but at least there have been some interventions and it is a great way to start. We can only advise them and pray for them,” he added.
On the empowerment programme, Olawepo-Hashim said his gesture to give back to society had no relation to his political aspirations.
He stated: “I have been doing this for decades. I have a passion for making society better. That was why I was involved in student unionism in those days. I was also involved in the Committee for Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) and now I am a successful businessman. So, one way to intervene is in the area of economic empowerment.
“What I can do at this time when things are really bad is to show love to underprivileged people in particular, and that we have been doing for decades. We have done training of young people in this digital acquisition over 1,000 of them. So, this is going to be a continuous thing.”
One of the beneficiaries, Luka Dakwoyi, urged the rich in the society to emulate the APC chieftain, saying there are many Nigerians out there in need of succour as the state of the economy bites harder.
