The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Olayemi Cardoso, says himself and his team are not responsible for the current economic woes in the country.

This was made known by Cardoso while answering questions from journalists at the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting of the apex bank, on Tuesday, February 27, 2024, in Abuja, the first since he assumed office in September 2023.

Cardoso, however, said the CBN is taking the necessary steps to get the country’s fiscal and monetary health back to normal.

He said the current management of the CBN assumed responsibility at a time of crisis of confidence, adding that efforts being made to redress this are beginning to yield results.

We need to do the difficult thing to make things better

While responding to a question that the CBN was responsible for the current economic challenges faced by Nigerians, Cardoso said,

“I laugh at that question but it’s not a laughing matter,” Cardoso retorted. “And I think it is very important for Nigerians to understand that the Central Bank Governor — I and my team — are not responsible for the woes that we have today; we are part of the solution.

“We are determined to ensure that we work hard to get out of the mess that Nigeria is in. We assumed responsibility in a time of crisis of confidence; there was a crisis of confidence and you may all want to go to bed and wish that crisis of confidence was not there but it was, and we can’t turn back the clock.

“All we can do is do the difficult things to make a bad situation better and I do believe that the efforts that we are making are beginning to bring back confidence because to be frank, without confidence in your business, you are not going to get far.”

What you should know

Nairametrics had earlier reported that the CBN had raised the monetary policy rate (MPR) by 400 basis points to a record 22.75%.
This is the highest level we have seen the MPR topping 18.75% which had remained since the last MPC meeting on the 24th and 25th of July 2023.

The apex bank also increased the Cash Reserve Ratio to 45% and maintained the liquidity ratio at 30%. The Asymmetric Corridor was also raised to +200/-700.

The CBN Governor had said with inflation rate at 29.90%, he said the new MPR is part of moves to tackle the country’s inflation.