The Central Bank of Nigeria on Wednesday said the law enforcement agencies should be held responsible for the ineffectiveness of the law banning spraying of currencies at social gatherings in the country. The CBN said because of the disinterest shown by the law enforcement agencies in apprehending those violating the law banning spraying of currencies, the perpetrators had persisted in the unlawful act.
Deputy Governor in charge of Operations, CBN, Mr. Tunde Lemo, who said this in Abeokuta during a sensitisation workshop on the commencement of the cash-less policy in Ogun State, however, said it was not the duty of the apex bank to enforce the law. The Federal Government had, through a bill signed into law in 2007 by the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, criminalised all manners of abuse of the Naira. The law also prescribed six months imprisonment or N50,000 fine or both sanctions for offenders. Lemo, however, expressed regret that the law enforcement agencies had so far been unable to arrest or prosecute any violator for spraying money or abusing naira notes since the bill was signed into law about six years ago.
Represented at the workshop by the Deputy Project Lead, Shared Services Office of the CBN, Abuja, Mr. Eme Eleonu, the apex bank’s deputy governor charged the police and other security agencies to rise to the occasion in the fight against the abuse of the Naira. He said, “CBN is a regulatory institution; it is not a law enforcement agency. You know it is criminal to spray money in Nigeria, yet nobody has been arrested by law enforcement agencies for spraying money. We can’t do the law enforcement job. We can’t do EFCC’s job. We are playing our role; let others play their own too.”
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