by Azeez Adeniyi

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana has accused Ministers in President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet of colluding with the International Monetary Fund to ruin the Naira.

In an interview with ThisDay, Falana said the IMF and Buhari’s ministers ‘dollarised’ Nigeria’s economy.

He said, “There is no doubt that the Buhari administration inherited a country that had been run aground by a dangerously corrupt and visionless ruling class. But because the ruling APC believes in the ideology of underdevelopment canvassed by imperialism, it has embraced the rein of market forces. Personally, President Muhammadu Buhari is vehemently opposed to the devaluation of the national currency, but his cabinet members who are largely neo-liberal ideologues, colluded with the IMF to dollarise the economy.

“At the end of the dubious experiment of the regime, the national currency has been ruined. Whereas, section 16 of the Constitution states that the government shall control the national economy in a manner that the commonwealth shall not be concentrated in the hands of a few people, the regime decided to hand over the economy to market forces and the private sector.

“Even though we are told by the apostles of market fundamentalism that the government has no business in business the government, government was made to sell our common patrimony to selected private sector players, provide them with intervention funds, huge loans from commercial banks, duty waivers and tax incentives. The same government has had to set up the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) to buy off the toxic loans of the rich. Today, AMCON is battling to recover N5.4 trillion in loans incurred by about 50 private sector players. Is that how to run a private sector driven economy?”

Azeez