Nigeria’s official currency Naira, hits N483 to a dollar in the nation’s parallel market.
The Naira to dollar transaction in Nigeria has continued to rise marginal since the outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Relating the development to the current state of the nation’s economy, a former President, Petroleum and Gas Senior Staff of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, Louis Brown Ogbeifun stated that, does this sound funny?
“All our imports are tied to the dollars. So, services and goods would also go up. Meanwhile no serious productive venture is ongoing. We are not thinking of passing the PIB soon to restream the oil and gas industry back to life and bankability. I sincerely worry about Nigeria.
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“The more the value of the Naira depreciates, the more the CBN tells Nigerians how much it would gulp to defend the Naira. Chinese and other loans are not making the country breathe well and we are yearning for more.
“It has been quoted in several media sources that Nigeria spent $36bn to defend the Naira in 2018. That was 130% over 2017. Surprisingly, it went down to $16.56bn in 2019. Did anyone interrogate why it was that high in 2018?
“These are huge sums, which could develop small plants along the oil and gas value chains, and provide employment for our youths. This could have built rail systems and refurbish our seaports on annual basis. In my own opinion, Nigeria is now heavily subsidizing the dollar, which is worse than fuel subsidy.
“This is subsidizing mega bucks owners in dollars. How can we exit fuel subsidy, and replace it with a worse subsidy that would on the long run, erode earnings and paupertlrize Nigerians the more? I cannot understand this political mathematics.
“As leaders, the question now is not how we got here but how to get out of this very terrifying slide. I welcome economic answers from contributors because the future of this country is in trouble if we continued like this. I don’t want lamentations without suggestions on how to deal with this.”