By EBELE ONUORAH

Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) has asked the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, to beware of encouraging currency trafficking by the proposed plan of introducing N5, 000 note to the nation’s currency.

Speaking on behalf of the Coalition, its Executive Chairman, Debo Adeniran, said the introduction of N5, 000 note  is antithetical to the motion for a cash-less economy which Sanusi is championing and would encourage currency trafficking.

”It is rather unfortunate that the so-called elites in our society act as lords and the only know-hows in the country. How can an expert be preaching cashless society and still propose to introduce higher notes with the argument that it is to reduce the amount of cash people hold?

“Even a lay man knows with the introduction of higher notes, people can hold and hoard more cash. If this introduction of N5, 000 is allowed to scale through, it means people can traffic much more money without stress and large amounts could be concealed into small places, which would make money laundering easier. Now, a bundle of N1, 000 is N500, 000, but with the new N5, 000 notes, a bundle is N2.5 million, which means more money could be trafficked with less hassle,” Adeniran noted.

Stressing further, CACOL Chairman noted that the introduction of higher note has inflationary tendencies which would impact negatively on purchasing power of the hapless masses. He lamented that prices of goods would go up, and even producers of goods that could be purchased with coins may pretend to increase the quantity of their goods with a view to making it attractive to higher denominations.

CACOL, however, called for the phasing out of higher denominations to discourage currency traffics and money laundering to improve the value of naira, while urging the CBN governor to encourage policies that will benefit the generality of the masses.