“The currency swap policy is a grand deception, Emefiele deceived Nigerians” – Keyamo

Festus Keyamo, a senior Nigerian lawyer and minister of state for labor and employment, claimed on Friday that Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, had duped Nigerians with the introduction of the new naira design.

He claimed Emefiele misled Nigerians when he declared the CBN would conduct a currency swap and instead took their money.

Keyamo, who spoke in an interview on Channels Television, words were, “There was a grand deception. You said it was currency swap, what you are doing is currency confiscation, it’s not swap. Swap is that I bring N1,000, you give N1,000. I bring 5,000, you give me N5,000 of the new notes.

“But you said all of us should deposit all our money. At that time we deposited all our money, the new notes were not available. I think that is where we also got it wrong as citizens. We should have insisted on the availability of the new notes before we deposited the old notes.

“What happens to financial freedom; you have confiscated my money, you have denied me the right over my money. That was the grand deception they sold to everybody.”

Despite the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (ret. ), having good intentions with the redesign of the naira, Keyamo claimed that the idea was poorly advised.