Despite claims by the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, that the crisis being experienced by the Naira was due to non-remittances by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd, an investigation by THE WHISTLER has revealed that the National Oil Company actually remitted a whopping sum of $2.7bn into its account with the apex bank during the first six months of this year.

The inflow into the NNPC’s account with the CBN, according to records seen by this website, was made between January and June this year.

The CBN has in a report titled: “The forex question in Nigeria: Fact sheet”, accused the NNPC Ltd of being behind the Naira crisis in Nigeria.

Specifically, the report stated that “domestically, there has been zero-dollar remittance to the country’s foreign reserve by the NNPC.”

But investigations by THE WHISTLER showed that out of the $2.7bn remittance into the NNPC account with the CBN, the sum of $645m was for dividend paid by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company Ltd, while $1.786bn was remitted from the operational activities of the NNPC Ltd.

Further analysis showed that the sum of $18,770,418.97 was remitted into the NNPC account with CBN in January, while February, and March had inflows of $194, 563, 276. 49 and $373, 232,875.20 respectively.

Investigations further revealed that in the month of April, the inflow into the NNPC’s account with the apex bank was $247,884,295.52, May $591, 565, 425. 41 and June $880, 906, 761.81

THE WHISTLER had reported how the Naira had depreciated to its lowest level in history to about N730 a dollar on the parallel market under the leadership of Emefiele as the CBN Governor.

The apex bank governor had in recent times put the blame of the declining value of the currency on different stakeholders.

For instance, in 2018, the CBN Governor said that the huge appetite of Nigerians for importation was responsible for the declining value of the Naira. He thereafter placed a ban on Forex accessibility for importation of 41 items.

In July 2021, Emefiele also hit at Bureau De Change (BDC) operators accusing them that their illegal forex trading was having a negative impact on the Naira.

In September 2021, Emefiele blamed Aboki FX for the naira depreciation the country had suffered then and threatened to arrest the brain behind the forex intelligence firm.

Early this year, the CBN governor again blamed the Naira depreciation on activities of those involved in money laundering, financing of terrorism as well as politicians.

This week, he has shifted the blame to the Nigerian National Petroluem Company Ltd.

The National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) had while reacting to the latest onslaught of the CBN Governor claimed that he has been working with opposition political parties and other groups to sabotage the Nigerian economy under President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Group made the accusation in a statement issued on Sunday and signed by its President, Solomon Adodo.

In the statement which was made available to THE WHISTLER, the NYCN claimed that the poor economic management policies of the apex bank under the leadership of Emefiele was responsible for the recent free-fall of the naira.

The NYCN said in the statement that the inability of CBN to promptly release Joint Venture (JV) cash-call funding from the Treasury Single Account (TSA) even when the NNPC had adequate cash cover, had led to loss of JV Partners’ confidence to restore production and reap the benefits of today’s improved oil prices.

Adodo said in the statement that as of date, over three months dollar-denominated cash call payment amounting to over $400m properly processed are yet to be paid by CBN.

The group flayed Emefiele for completely failing to concentrate on his core mandate of price stability as a CBN Governor, pointing out that with inflation hitting about 19 per cent and the exchange rate at close to N750 to a dollar, the CBN governor has pushed more Nigerians into poverty.

The action of the CBN governor, the statement said, negates President Muhammadu Buhari’s objective to take 100 million people out of poverty.

He said, “The combined impact of CBN’s inability to promptly release JV cash-call to restore production, the increasing losses due to crude oil theft and production deferments has culminated to significant crude oil output losses of over 600, 000 barrels per day.

“At the current year-to-date average crude oil price of $107 per barrel, Nigeria is counting opportunity loses translating to over $64m per day, and a monumental impact of about $2bn per month.

“To its credit, NNPC has recorded significant gains on production ramp up including attaining ‘first oil’ production from the Anyala – Madu Fields and most recently Ikike fields which cumulatively boost national oil production by almost 80, 000 barrels per day.