President Muhammadu Buhari has several times ruled out the possibility of his government devaluing the naira. However, many Nigerians believe that the president is killing naira.

Tom Garba of Today.ng gives 17 powerful reasons why Buhari is not the killer of the naira.

A lot has been said about the falling of the country’s currency, the blames were all toward to President Buhari. I investigated on the bedeviling issue and I discovered the problem is never to be linked with the present administration as the initiator or the genesis of crippling the national economy.

Please let me help our minds with this simple economic terms that dollar has not increased since Buhari became president but only an effort by the present government to improve the economy is making others evil agencies to cajole the naira value in favor of the dollars.

1. Dollar is not our currency so dollar should not be our business.
2. Our problem is not the government but our problem is our importers and consumers. 3. Naira has remained at 197 naira to 1 dollar since Buhari became president.
4. Buhari has promised not to devalue the naira and he has maintained that promise.
5. Both at CBN and at interbank rates, dollar has remained 197.
6.However because we are too lazy to produce what we use in Nigeria we import even toothpicks and matches.
7. Buhari does not like the importation of luxury goods because luxury goods is the reason for most corruption, that is why he banned 41 products from having access to forex.
8. However when Nigerian importers insisted on importing those 41 products, FG asked them to find their dollar at the BDCs parallel market also known as black market.
9. And to discourage the pressure Nigerians are mounting on the Naira just to get dollars for importation, CBN banned DMBs from selling dollars to BDCs.
10. To survive the pressure of excess dollar demands, BDCs resorted to sourcing for dollars from neighbouring countries through illicit money laundering routes.
11. Because of the risks faced by BDCs to source for dollars, and because of the increase in demand for dollars by importers because China just resumed from their business holidays, BDCs keep increasing the price at which they exchange dollars to naira and now it is 400 naira to 1 dollar.
12. However that does not mean that government has changed the exchange rate because if our genuine importers go to CBN and fill Form M to import raw materials for local production, they will get dollars at 197 naira each.
13. So the problem is that we love to consume luxury foreign products yet we are too lazy to manufacture them here.
14. For example you will see a dull girl using iPhone 5 without even knowing simple physics and computer engineering part of how that phone was produced.
15. I want Buhari to ban every foreign product from Nigeria until Nigerians learn to produce and use made-in-Nigeria products.
16. Let us stop complaining about dollar as if dollar has become Nigeria’s currency.
17. It is even bad enough that most of those complaining about the high exchange rate of dollar do not have 1 single dollar in their purse.

Tom Garba of Today.ng

you made good points..but your no 15 is quite awkward sha.....

A currency called Naira

Got it right up apart from importing everything .
No country makes everything. You are going to import something whether you like it or not .
The iPhone is not our problem .TVs, PlayStation cameras are not as well.
The problem is the psyche of the country and a lack of leadership.
How hard is it to build refineries ? Many people ( Igbo , Hausa, Yoruba , edo , delta , rivers etc have been gifted oil blocks ( basically free money ) , yet none of them has invested any of that free money into any initiative; Including refineries .
Yet they luxuriate in all stuffs the world has to offer.
How much does it cost to build a medium sized steel plant ?
When you have elites with this kind of mentality , then you have big trouble to contend with .
Just imagine the money to be made from refineries . Yet , the Nigerian elites are unwilling to stake their money
Elsewhere, those elites set the pace and policy .
All that tells me is that the cake is being given to the wrong people .