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Buhari rejects devaluation of Naira

By Mohammed Abubakar, Abuja
28 January 2016   |   3:54 pm
PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has laid to rest the fate of Nigerian currency, the Naira when he ruled out the devaluation. He declared late Wednesday in Nairobi, Kenya that he was yet to be convinced that Nigeria and its people would derive any tangible benefit from an official devaluation of the Naira. Speaking at an interactive…
Buhari

Buhari

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has laid to rest the fate of Nigerian currency, the Naira when he ruled out the devaluation. He declared late Wednesday in Nairobi, Kenya that he was yet to be convinced that Nigeria and its people would derive any tangible benefit from an official devaluation of the Naira.

Speaking at an interactive meeting with Nigerians residents in Kenya, Buhari, according to a statement signed by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu maintained that while export-driven economies could benefit from devaluation of their currencies, devaluation would only result in further inflation and hardship for the poor and middle classes in Nigeria’s import-dependent economy.

The President added that he had no intention of bringing further hardship on the country’s poor who, he said, have suffered enough already.

Likening devaluing the Naira to having it “killed”, Buhari said that proponents of devaluation will have to work much harder to convince him that ordinary Nigerians will gain anything from it.

The President also rejected suggestions that the Central Bank of Nigeria should resume the sale of foreign exchange to Bureaux de Change (BDCs), saying that the Bureau de Change business had become a scam and a drain on the economy.

According to him, “We had just 74 of the bureau in 2005, now they have grown to about 2,800.”

He alleged that some banks and government officials used surrogates to run the BDCs and prosper at public expense by obtaining foreign exchange from government at official rates and selling it at much higher rates,

Buhari maintained that, “We will use our foreign exchange for industry, spare parts and the development of needed infrastructure.

“We don’t have the dollars to give to the BDCs. Let them go and get it from wherever they can, other than the Central Bank,” Buhari told the gathering, reaffirming his conviction that about a third of petroleum subsidy payments under the previous administration was bogus.

“They just stamped papers and collected our foreign exchange,” he said.

The President appealed to Nigerians studying abroad to bear with his administration as it strives to address the challenges they are facing as a result of new foreign exchange measures.

He said that he was optimistic that the Nigerian economy will stabilize soon with the efficient implementation of measures and policies that have been introduced by his administration.

3 Comments

  • Author’s gravatar

    I am afraid the option now is to devalue the currency.

  • Author’s gravatar

    Proponents of devaluation cite export driven economies as examples of the success of devaluation policy, when you cite import driven economy like Nigeria and ask them to name the benefits, they turn around to tell you the disadvantages of not – devaluing to export driven economies.

    These people don’t have the Nigeria situation in mind when they pontificate on Naira’s value. It’s just terrible that some of them occupy positions that give them a clout of credibility. The good thing is that we have a President who ask the questions they are not willing to answer.