Except the banks are made to start transiting the dollars in their kitty by way of quick turnover, the mess of the speculation they are involved in will continue. It is gladdening to see the Central Bank now imposing the net open position as a policy for compliance by the commercial banks.

However, attempts at ensuring compliance in the past have not succeeded as compromises continue to reign. My hope and expectation are that the new Central Bank leadership, in conjunction with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, urgently intervenes. Currency speculation must be arrested.

This is the further way to reduce the pressure on the foreign exchange while ensuring access to it by those desirous of it. The existence of a parallel market in Nigeria has made this job of controlling foreign exchange impossible. I understand that many of the dingy corners of our streets littered by dollar hawkers are funded by the banking executives.

The Act of the National Assembly creating the parallel market ought to be revisited so as to impose stringent regulatory measures. At least we are aware of how the business is carried on in other countries where the mode of regulation is quite effective that the black market would not determine the performance of their currencies in foreign exchange. Nigeria seems to be a lawless society where the tradition of legal compliance does not exist in abundance.

Where the government continues to allow the black market to continue to exist loosely regulated, it is certain that those who profit from the system will not let the dollar be. The same way they have made the dollar a scarce commodity, they have made new naira notes the exclusive preserve of naira hawkers at parties.

The banks are most likely to turn you down if you ask for new naira notes only for you to find it stacked in bales in the hands of poor women who harass people to buy naira with naira in order to spray on celebrators at events.

The profit margin at which naira even exchanges for naira makes the business of hawking new notes quite profitable. Unfortunately, those poor women are not the ones directly profiting from the business.

The bankers, who gave them the new naira notes, are the ones making huge profits out which the hawkers merely collect a commission. It ought to be made illegal to find anyone hawking naira.

This practice of hawking naira at events ought to be halted. It is criminal already for anyone to spray naira at parties but the law is still being observed in the breach.

For God’s sake, naira is not supposed to be an item of trade like cassava or bread. It is the means of exchange otherwise referred to as the legal tender.

The government must crack down on all criminals who have made our country a hell on earth. Until this is done, owning a bank or occupying a top position in a bank may be the best way to make fortunes on a daily basis. It is my view that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission should revisit the issue of compliance by bankers with the filling and submission of the code of conduct forms, thwarted by the National Assembly then. This is the most potent way of tracking their illicit funds.

Concluded.