A former Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, has decried the “excessive printing of money” through Ways and Means by the Central Bank of Nigeria under the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, stating that this policy crippled the naira.

The Ways and Means provisions grant the Federal Government the leeway to borrow money from the central bank if it needs emergency financing to fund government expected cash receipts and fiscal deficits.

In 2024, a Senate ad-hoc committee revealed that the immediate past Federal Government printed over ₦31 trillion under the Ways and Means provision, attributing the decision as the main cause of the naira losing its value.

Speaking at the Progressives Governors Forum’s Meeting and Interactive Session in Benin City, Edo State, on Saturday, June 28, 2025, Oshiomhole faulted the policy for the eventual collapse of the Nigerian currency against the US dollar.

“We are coming from a country that was almost like Zimbabwe or Idi Amin’s Uganda, where he asked the Central Bank governor, ‘go and print more money for us to share to the people’. And the governor said, ‘If we print more money, Uganda currency will be like a sheet of paper. ’

“This is what the immediate past CBN governor was doing. In the Senate, we have the record that they printed over ₦31 trillion, which they called Ways and Means. You know, when the government wants to deceive people, they use jargon.

“They called it Ways and Means but I can tell you what it means: it means a situation in which the government prints banknotes, not based on what we have earned or any resources, just print banknotes to go and share to the people to meet their money illusion. It is the result of that excessive printing of banknotes that led to the collapse of the naira,” he stated.

Oshiomhole highlights the root cause of economic hardship
Oshiomhole, who represents Edo North in the Senate, further said that the cause of the prevalent economic hardship could be traced to the excessive currency in the system under the so-called Way and Means arrangement.

He noted that, “to understand the root cause of the present cost of living and the exchange rate regime, you must trace it and locate it in terms of the excessive amount of banknotes through so-called Ways and Means, which the past government created and which this government has eliminated.”

The lawmaker stressed that the nation was “borrowing every day the way fish drink water”, adding that the onus is now on President Bola Tinubu to pay back those loans in order to guarantee the sovereignty of Nigeria.