The Full Picture: The not-so-mainstream news roundup – MoneyMagpie

The news and contemporary media can be a great source of information on global events, politics, weather and sports. But the mainstream news can often be bias, pushing some happenings more than others, focusing on some topics heavily and neglecting others.

Here at MoneyMagpie, we believe in the importance of sharing the latest that many mainstream outlets may have failed to, or deliberately chose not to, cover.

Every week, we’ll be rounding up some of the top stories that you may have missed.

Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria arrested

The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has been arrested by the country’s secret police, on undisclosed charges.

The controversial banker – whose attempt to force Nigeria to go “cashless” earlier this year caused widespread economic paralysis – was removed from his post by the country’s new president, Bola Tinubu, on June 9th. He was subsequently arrested hours later on what was described as “some investigative reasons”.

Between January and February, the Central Bank of Nigeria withdrew all high-denomination Naira banknotes from circulation and failed to replace them with the newly designed notes as promised. The shortage of cash triggered an economic crunch that saw businesses unable to pay their staff, people unable to buy food, and the economy grind to a halt due to the implementation of daily limits on cash withdrawals.

In March, Nigeria’s Supreme Court forced the CBN to pause the cash-swap programme until the end of the year.

Emefiele had faced calls for his arrest following the debacle. Banks were also vandalised or burned to the ground by angry citizens desperate to access their savings.

Announcing the cash swap last October, the CBN said the redesign of the currency would “help deepen our drive to entrench a cashless economy” and added that the shortage of banknotes would force Nigerians into adopting the eNaira – the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) that the government had previously failed to encourage citizens into adopting through free giveaways.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) – which played a key role in Nigeria’s CBDC development and roll-out – described the Nigerian public’s adoption of the eNaira as “disappointingly low,” with fewer than two per cent of the downloaded eNaira wallets actually being used. CBDCs are viewed with suspicion by many in the country and around the world, for their potential for possible government overreach.

The Bank of England (BofE) has called for the adoption of CBDCs in the UK. In 2021, the BofE asked ministers to decide whether the proposed “Britcoin” CBDC should be “programmable”, meaning it could be programmed to automatically expire if not used by a certain date or used to control what products or services people are allowed to buy.

In March this year, the BofE’s Katie Fortune rowed back on this possible “programmable” suggestion, adding: “What we can’t have with public money is some sense that I might decide you are not allowed to spend that on what you want to spend it on, because the government doesn’t approve of what you’re doing.”