Godwin Emefiele, governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has said it is illegal to exchange naira for dollar. He urged politicians against engaging in the act.
“As for those who want to buy sic take naira from their account to buy dollars because of the election. I want to warn not advice that it is illegal to do so. Whereas it will sound more convenient to carry dollar because you could carry little dollars but with a lot of value in your pocket, but if the security agencies hold you, you know the implication of that,” he said.
Emefiele said the CBN would track and place restrictions on bank accounts that may be found to engage in suspicious movement of forex.
“We will continue from our own side to use our own apparatus through which we monitor movement of funds between customers or between banks and customers or from one bank to the other bank and any bank that we find in those form of transactions will be considered to be unauthorized or we considered to be illegal you can consider that your account will be placed on PND (Post No Debit).
Post no Debit (PnD) is a punitive tool used by the CBN to restrict the transfer of funds from any bank account in the country suspicious of being used illegally. When the restriction is placed, the account can not have any money transferred or withdrawn out of it for the duration it is under “PnD”.
The apex bank governor also warned facilitators “illegal flows whether domestic or foreign currency.” “I will advise you not to get involved in unauthorized and illegal movement of money from your bank to your account or from one account to another account, or a currency conversion. When you do that and you are caught in that practice your account will be placed on PND” he concluded.
