Nigeria’s oil industrialist, Ifeanyi Uba, says he knows who the naira saboteurs are as he vowed to name and even work with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to track them, if President Muhammadu Buhari consults him.
Uba particularly claims he can fix the Nigerian battered naira to come down to at least N200/$ within 30 days, if appointed as Buhari’s consultant on financial stability.
To this, Uba staked his over N500 billion assets to the Nigerian people if he fails to deliver, saying he is concerned that other oil producing countries are equally are experiencing similar problems with oil price drop, but wondered why their currencies have not crashed the way the naira has done in the last one year.
According to Uba, the real solution is to find who the speculators are and prosecute them, as he notes good management of the economy and supporting those who can genuinely help the economy as key rather than support ‘monopolists.’
“I want to reiterate my earlier proposition to the Federal Government about my capacity to bring back the naira to N200 per dollar. I have the magic wand,” he tells journalists in Abuja, Tuesday.
“I pledge every asset of mine into my proposal. If I fail to bring the dollar to N200 within 30 days, the Federal Government should seize everything I have.
“What is causing this problem is artificial, and we have what it takes and I promise that Nigeria is not going to loose one kobo to get this done,” he says further.
He says he is contented and not looking for political appointment in this bid, but concerned about the plight of Nigerians who, on daily basis, suffer harsh economic conditions and watch their local currency get battered when the culprits sit by and harvest from the Nigeria’s present economic woes.
Uba, CEO of Capital Oil Group, says he would put up a system comprising intellectuals and key sector owners that would sit down and bring up strategies for the Nigerian economy.
“I do not need to be a minister, a CBN governor or anything. I just need to be consulted because I have the strategy that I can execute,” he insists. “Again, I want to pledge my assets as a collateral to the Nigerian people that if I fail to bring down naira exchange rate to N200/$ within 30 days, I will forfeit everything I own.”
In a convincing argument on his capacity to fix the naira, he recalled that about nine years ago, he was able to create a structure that till date nobody had been able to beat in the downstream oil sector of the Nigerian economy. “It is a structure that as of today, continues to control close to 34 percent of daily Nigerian consumption distribution.
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