By Ali-Haidar Waziri Isa
Nigeria’s leading Human rights activist and lawyer, Femi Falana SAN, has urged President Bola Tinubu to ditch the US Dollar and embrace the BRICS nations’ approach to trade, calling on the government to reject IMF and World Bank prescriptions and instead trade in the Nigerian Naira.
Falana stated this recently when he was hosted by Politics Today on Channels Television.
The world renowned Human rights activist warned that the IMF and World Bank’s recommendations, including the withdrawal of subsidy and floating of currency, have never assisted any country to develop.
“The right thing to do is to reject the prescriptions of the IMF and the World Bank telling you to remove fuel subsidy, float your currency, and so on, which has never assisted any country to develop,” he stated.
Falana advised the government to join the group of countries in BRICS to trade in the Nigerian local currency instead of the Dollar.
He emphasized that other countries, even those considered friends of the United States, are joining BRICS to save their economies, and Nigeria should follow suit.
“There are countries in the world today that are insisting and saying they are not going to be tied to the American Dollar. They say they are going to trade among themselves in their local currencies. Those countries are in BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Others are joining them – Saudi Arabia, UAE, Ethiopia, Egypt, and others have joined them,” Falana explained.
He questioned why Nigeria has not joined BRICS, saying, “We cannot be more Catholic than the Pope.
If friends of the West are joining BRICS, why are we not there, so that we can trade with other countries in their currencies, so that Nigeria can trade in Naira?”