I, my team not responsible for Nigeria’s economic woes —Cardoso

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Olayemi Cardoso, said he and his team are not responsible for Nigeria’s current economic woes.

Cardoso stated this while responding to a question about whether the CBN is responsible for the current economic challenges faced by Nigerians at the first Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja yesterday.

The CBN boss, however, said the CBN is taking the necessary steps to get the country’s fiscal and monetary health back to normal. He said, “I laugh at that question but it’s not a laughing matter and I think it is very important for Nigerians to understand that the Central Bank Governor — I and my team — are not responsible for the woes that we have today; we are part of the solution.

“We are determined to ensure that we work hard to get out of the mess that Nigeria is in. We assumed responsibility in a time of crisis of confidence; there was a crisis of confidence and you may all want to go to bed and wish that crisis of confidence was not there but it was, and we can’t turn back the clock.

“All we can do is do the difficult things to make a bad situation better and I do believe that the efforts that we are making are beginning to bring back confidence because to be frank, without confidence in your business, you are not going to get far.”

Meanwhile, the CBN has raised its benchmark interest rate, the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR), to 22.75 percent.

This represents 400 basis points, up from the current 18.75 percent.

Cardoso disclosed this at the end of the Monetary Policy Committee, MPC meeting held in Abuja today.

It would be recalled that in 2023, Nigeria’s MPC implemented a strategy of gradually increasing the MPR over four consecutive meetings.

Other important indices, such as the Cash Reserves Ratio (CRR) and Liquidity Ratio, stayed constant throughout the time despite these aggressive efforts, with the CRR remaining at 32.5 percent and the Liquidity Ratio at 30.0 percent.