They tried to "defend the Naira." It didn't work. It took them an entire year and a recession to realize that nobody does that in the twenty first century. They reluctantly let the Naira float, but they didn't let it go fully. Their authoritarian, command and control instinct would not let them do that. They still have caps and pegs that have morphed into multiple rates, opening the door to corruption in the form of round tripping. 

Then they decided that the problem was the money changers. They unleashed the DSS on BDCs in multiple cities. When the raids began, the Naira exchanged at 455 to the dollar. Predictably, forex traders went underground, creating forex scarcity, and transactions migrated to informal, invisible spaces, out of the reach of the DSS. Today, about three weeks after the counterproductive and possibly unconstitutional raids began, the Naira exchanges at 485 to the dollar. 

Everyone except the brains behind this administration's policies knows that you cannot force rates down through harassment and that if you attempt it, it will create scarcity and scarcity drives rates and prices up. 

We are dealing with hyperinflation in the foodstuffs sector' so what is the government proposing to do? My brother, agriculture minister, Audu Ogbe, says they are contemplating reinstating the produce pricing and marketing boards of old. And now we've come full circle back to the colonial period of fixed prices, buying stations, and state-controlled agricultural markets. 

To square the circle, why not bring back colonial crop quotas and forced cultivation? Going back to 1984 is one thing. Going back to colonial times to retrieve policies set in an ethos of domination and exploitation is quite another. I give up.