Governor Alex Otti of Abia State has stated that the naira’s constant depreciation is due to the Federal Government printing too much money for circulation.
Otti mentioned this in an interview with Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday.
He said, “I believe that the major problem we have is financial discipline. We are dealing with an economy where we printed so much money, at the last count, we will be nearing N30 trillion.
“So what happens with ways and means is that the quantum of goods that you have available in an economy does not increase with the quantity of money that you print.”
The governor said the nation must move from consumption to production for the economy to recover.
He said a situation where Nigeria imports virtually every product piles much pressure on the foreign market.
Otti said, “The issue of production versus consumption, if the economy must recover, we must move to production.
“That does not necessarily mean we will reduce consumption. What it means is that we will be consuming what we produce, to the extent that we are importing virtually everything. You keep piling pressure on the foreign exchange market,” he added.