For 6yrs, the Jonathan administration was able to maintain a stable forex rate for the naira which hovered at around 156 to the USD.

This feat was achieved through a steady supply of forex sales into the local economy by the CBN .

The last immediate Governor of the CBN, by estimation, provided $100bn to local businesses during his 5yr stint.

This huge amount was made possible due to high oil receipts to govt coffers buoyed by a strong and growing confidence in our economy.

The naira began its decline through a deliberate and well thought out policy move by the CBN to devalue it on the heels of lowering oil prices.

The naira then saw a dip to 178 naira during the twilight years of the past administration in the closing quater of 2014. This policy was borne out of both necessity and commonsense.

Further decline in the naira was recorded in the buildup to the 2015 general elections not out of fiscal constraints but owing largely to an unstable political atmosphere. Investors being rightfully wary of the careless rhetrioc and threats of unleashing violence by the opposition party and it's candidate (just as Buhari promised and executed in 2011 after he lost out), led to most investors fleeing for safety. The stock market was heavily hit and the naira was not spared as well which saw the naira dipping to as low as 210 to the USD.

After the vagabonds secured their mandate in May, 2015 the naira gradually regained some value to 199. This wasn't out of any economic masterstoke by the Buhari adminstration but merely due to the fact that Nigeria had survived one of her most tense political situations in her history.

This value remained stubbornly and artificially stagnant for over one year leading to the greatest disparity between the official rates to that of the parallel market.


Fig 1: Naira trend from Jan 2011 to May, 2015


The politics of the naira had now taken precedence over the economics of its true value

Despite several calls to float the naira, the arrogating mediocre at the helms refused to do the needful.




The naira took several hits further when the man at the helms refused to announce a cabinet and issue any economic road map. Rather, the man in charge went on a global pilgrimage tour prophesying his mythical Puritan sainthood while denouncing his fellow country men as indisciplined criminals and preaching to whoever had time to waste that Nigeria was broke. If there was ever a worst demarketing agent, here came Buhari to out shadow him at the task of rubbishing our nation to which he was elected to promote.

The Buhari govt will then set out to try old and discarded rubbish fiscal policies that have never worked and will never work in trying to buoy his artificial currency. He introduced import restrictions on items without providing insentives to promote alternatives within our local manufacturing sector. He isolated our economy from the rest of the world by introducing silly restrictions on individual consumption and use of their ATMs while abroad and on the net. He favored his cronies and family members with subsidized forex gotten from the CBN with a note from him which they dumped on the parallel market to get huge returns. He then decided to stop all ongoing govt projects and payments to contractors in order to keep our foreign reserves hovering at $26bn (down from $30bn he inherited on May,29).

Not stopping there, he squandered much needed forex in compensating his theiving governors who supported him in the last election. I know you will say that both APC and PDP controlled states got a bailout but why should Osun state get a bailout of 40bn naira - an amount 400% higher than the next highest state recipient! The osun bailout was nothing but anavenue to compensate Bola Ahmed Tinubu since the rascal governor of osun did not use the huge sum - which amounted to a year's earnigs for the state to offset owed civil servants' salaries.



Fig 2: the Dullard's voodoo tricks effect on the naira

Not only did he squander the LNG funds in compensating his theiving accomplices, he forced banks through his bailout agreement to reschedule debts owed by states. This led to a huge shortfall in liquidity flows to banks since the states where their biggest debtors. The antecedents were shaky banks that led to a lot of branch closures, staff retrenchment and a spike in interests rates further contracting the economy.

The dullard will later apply for a 2 trillion naira supplementary budget based on loans in late November , 2015 claiming the inherited budget he met "was no more feasible in light of harsh economic realities". Now what exactly did he do with the 4.5 trillion budget and the additional 2trillion naira supplementary budget for 2015? Not a damn thing!

It gets worse. In early 2016, the dullard issued another draconian decree on our economy restricting forex sales to local manufacturers; declaring they "source forex from other sources" - the black market to be precise which his cronies where now supplying forex to. This saw the naira crashing at well over 320 to a dollar.

So who exactly is our forex for since Buhari has restricted virtually every one but himself, his cronies, family members , political jobbers and newly acquired business affiliates to forex access ?

As things stand now our foreign reserves is just sitting fallow in foriegn bank accounts servicing foreign interests and businesses.

So who in God's holy name does our foriegn reserves epp?

The dullard will later apply for a 2 trillion naira supplementary budget based on loans in late November , 2015 claiming the inherited budget he met "was no more feasible in light of harsh economic realities". Now what exactly did he do with the 4.5 trillion budget and the additional 2trillion naira supplementary budget for 2015? Not a damn thing!

He is asking for an additional 2 trillion to his record deficit scam budget of 2016 thereby increasing govt spending for 2016 to 8.2 trillion with nothing whatsoever on ground to show for it.