Following strings of policies recently implemented by the apex bank, including the arrest of the Binance executives, the naira has surprisingly gained N234.01 and N340 to the dollar at official and parallel markets in just about four weeks.
This is as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu assured that the momentum will be sustained.
FMDQ data indicated that naira traded for N1,431.49 per dollar on Friday, March 22, compared to N1,665.50 on February 23, 2024.
This represents a N234.01 gain in the past four weeks.
Similarly, the Naira gained N340 against the dollar in the parallel market, as the naira exchanged at N1,460 per USD on Friday, March 22, compared to N1,800 a month ago.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had introduced several sweeping policies to rescue the Naira, including halting cash payment of Personal Travel Allowance, PTA, and Business Travel Allowance, BTA, ‘Financial Markets Price Transparency and Market Notice of a Revision to the FMDQ FX Market Rate Pricing Methodology’ and drafted guidelines for Bureau De Change operators.
On Friday, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appealed to Nigerians to patronise Made-in-Nigeria goods to grow the naira against the dollar.
President Bola Tinubu assured that the current momentum that Nigerians are seeing with respect to strengthening of the naira against other major currencies including the dollar will be sustained and not going to slow down.
This disclosure is contained in a press briefing by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, with State House correspondents on Friday, March 22, 2024.
Ngelale said the efforts put in place by the president in collaboration with other agencies of government and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in dealing decisively with sharp practices on certain cryptocurrency trading platforms, dealing decisively with sharp practices within the parallel market of the foreign exchange ecosystem are now yielding fruit.
The presidency in the statement expressed its belief that patronage of made-in-Nigeria products is key to strengthening the naira and wants Nigerians to buy goods produced in the country to make that happen.
Ngelale said President Tinubu has approved a series of interventions to ensure that we see a mass strengthening of the Naira against all other global currencies.
“His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu wants to communicate very clearly to our people, that there has never been a more important time in our history to actively agree together. That we will patronize and purchase made in Nigeria products across all value chains across all sectors.
“There is an intentionality that we must have on this issue that we want a strong currency, we want the spending power of our people to go up. We want every Naira and kobo we earn to be more valuable not just here. But when we travel abroad, the way to achieve that is by doing just this,” said Ngelale.
