Nigeria’s respected former central bank chief has said that exchange rate policies backed by President Muhammadu Buahri are doomed to fail, the UK-based Financial Times newspaper reports.
Lamido Sanusi told the Financial Times that he was disappointed to see Mr Buhari’s strong security and anti-corruption efforts overshadowed by a monetary policy regime with “very obvious drawbacks that far outweigh its dubious benefits”.
Nigeria’s central bank last year imposed tight capital controls and pegged the currency, the naira, at an official rate currently 35% stronger than the black market rate.
The policies sparked capital flight and damaged the West African state’s reputation as a frontier market investment destination, the Financial Times newspaper reports.
Mr Sanusi – who is now the emir of Kano, an influential religious post among Muslims in Nigeria – was the central bank governor from 2009 to 2014, when he was suspended by then-President Goodluck Jonathan following a row over corruption in the oil sector.
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