The Central Bank has warned Nigerian citizens who purchase dollars using Nigeria's naira to arrest and take legal action.

It is against the law for anyone to steal money from banks to purchase dollars. "If the security agencies hold you, you will know the meaning of that," Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), remarked on Tuesday at a meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in Lagos.


Mr Emefiele, reading the riot act to bank customers, urged Nigerians who were illegally exchanging naira for dollars to stop, adding that the apex bank would conduct investigations and bar those found guilty from conducting transactions in Nigerian banks. He was reading the riot act to bank customers.

Mr Emefiele revealed that the central bank is monitoring clients and banks, and he warned that the CBN would penalise institutions that were detected engaging in unlawful activities.

You will not be allowed to transact in any Nigerian bank because we will investigate the matter, and we will have proof when we do. We will put a "post no debit" on account of the consumer who has defaulted. According to the governor of the CBN, "It is a highly harmful instrument to deter you from undertaking unlawful flows, either local or foreign currencies."

The warning was issued due to measures made by the central bank to stop the value of the naira and the country's economy from deteriorating.

According to the information provided by the exchange website Aboki Forex, the value of one naira was equivalent to N620 versus one U.S. dollar on the parallel market on Monday, marking a new all-time low for the naira.

In July of 2021, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) ended conducting foreign currency transactions via bureaux de change.

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