Sanction airlines transacting business in foreign currencies, ACF tells FG

The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has commended the Federal Government for its position against airlines operating in the country and selling tickets in foreign currency.

Chairman of the ACF, Chief Audu Ogbeh, in a statement yesterday, urged the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, to sanction any airline found wanting in this regard.

According to Ogbeh, the action, if allowed to continue, would “negate the value of the naira, and will, undoubtedly, throw Nigeria and its economy into a precarious situation.”

Ogbeh noted that “no airline will venture to perpetrate such ugly thing in most countries, across the globe,” adding that “any airline transacting business in Nigeria in foreign currency is an enemy of the nation.”

He, therefore, called on the Ministry of Aviation to, as a matter of urgency, spread its tentacles toward arresting such menace.

“No airline wishing any country good should involve itself in sabotaging its economy through dwarfing the value of its currency,” the ACF chieftain stressed.

He called on President Muhammadu Buhari, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Ministry of Finance, “to take stern measures in ensuring that whoever arrives our country must convert his/her currency into naira for whatever business transaction”, stressing that “failure amounts to economic sabotage.”