Mr Muda Yusuf, the Director-General of Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), on Sunday urged the Federal Government not to make the adoption of the `Eco’ common currency, a priority.
Yusuf made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
He said that there were important economic issues that needed government’s attention.
“For us in Nigeria, the adoption of the `Eco’ on the issue of monetary union should not be a priority at this time.
“There are more important issues to address as far as economic integration is concerned.
“We need to get the sequencing right. We are still grappling with the challenges of preliminary stages of economic integration which are the Free Trade Area and Customs Union.
“There is the higher level of common market before we talk about monetary union, where we have the adoption of a common currency.
“The reality is that the pace of economic integration in ECOWAS has been very slow,’’ the LCCI boss said.
Yusuf advised government to give attention to building strong, diversified, competitive and inclusive economy.
According to him, a virile economy is critical to a beneficial participation in international trade, whether at the sub- regional, continental or global level.
Prof. Ndubisi Nwokoma, Director, Centre for Economic Policy Analysis and Research (CEPAR), University of Lagos, urged the Federal Government to pull out from the common currency adoption.
He said, “What the Francophone countries had done by renaming their own CFA franc as Eco and asking Nigeria to join, is an anomaly and a trap.
“So, the government of Nigeria should not join.’’
Nigeria and five other West African countries rejected the use of `Eco’ as the region’s single currency.
The rejection is sequel to the sudden renaming of CFA franc by Francophone countries of ECOWAS as `Eco’, which was not the decision of members of ECOWAS.
The decision was to adopt `Eco’ as the name of an independent ECOWAS single currency. (NAN)
