Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s immediate past president once said that Nigeria must kill corruption or corruption will kill Nigeria. Ironically, Buhari proved too docile in the fight against corruption.

Nigeria dropped below several rungs in Transparency International corruption rating during Buhari’s calamitous eight-year reign.

Buhari was tragically prophetic. Nigeria has failed to kill corruption. Corruption is killing Nigeria. The naira is doing a futile battle in the foreign exchange market because corruption is attacking it from the demand and supply angles.

The exchange rate of the naira plummeted last week to N950 to the dollar because the serving generals and admirals stealing Nigeria’s crude oil have reduced production to mere 1.2 million barrels per day, thus cutting supply of foreign exchange to the market drastically.

The exchange rate of the naira is plummeting because the pittance in supply left by the thieving generals and admirals is mopped up by corrupt politicians and top civil servants who are in desperate bid to convert what they looted from Nigeria’s waning treasury into dollars for investment in Dubai. Speculative demand is killing the naira.

Buhari as an individual is a very honest man. But he was too weak to fight corruption because those stealing crude oil and looting the miserable revenue dripping into the treasury were too powerful for his control. He looked the other way as corruption subjected Nigeria to slow and excruciating death.

Buhari inherited the naira at an exchange rate of N199 to the dollar in 2015.

Unfortunately by the time he left on May 29, 2023, the naira had slipped precipitously to N760 to the dollar in the parallel market.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) worsened the plight of the naira with its devious multiple exchange rate policy. The naira was trading at N420 to the dollar at the official window of the apex bank.

CBN officials feasted on the N340 per dollar margin between the official and parallel market rates. They sold dollars to their well connected users at N420 to the dollar and give them two accounts to deposit the proceeds.

The beneficiaries would pay the rate of N420 to the dollar into CBN official account and pay N120 per dollar to a private account operated by the apex bank official handling the transaction.

Consequently, if a beneficiary gets $1 million at the official rate, the apex bank officials handling the transaction smile to the bank with N120 million.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu halted the deviousness of CBN officials by decreeing the unification of the exchange rates of the naira on June 14, 2023.

Ironically, Nigeria’s failed war on corruption has truncated the chances of the economy gaining from the operation of a single exchange rate.

The exchange rates unification is being attacked from two fronts. The generals and admirals stealing Nigeria’s crude oil have drastically reduced the flow of forex into the market. They have consequently created an acute supply deficit behind the naira’s catastrophic depreciation.

Nigeria at the moment is not even meeting the 2023 budget crude oil reference target of 1.6 million barrels per day.

The invincible crude oil thieves have reduced the owner of the mineral resource to a beggar making do with whatever is left by the thieves.

The result is that Nigeria services its modest debt with 93 per cent of its miserable revenue. At that level of revenue, the federal government is just spreading the poverty in the land by borrowing to pay the outrageous federal civil service salary.

President Tinubu himself has not done anything to reverse the ugly situation. Everyone from the World Bank to Nigerian pundits expected the president to rein in Nigeria’s unwieldy cost of governance by reducing the size of his cabinet and civil service.

The constitution imposes a cabinet of 36 ministers on the president. That is unacceptably high for Nigeria’s dwindling revenue.

But Tinubu worsened the situation by slapping together a cabinet of 48 ministers in a desperate bid to create jobs for the myriads of hangers-on who worked for his electoral success.

Nigeria has no reason to muster a cabinet of 48 ministers especially at lean times like this. Joe Biden runs America’s $21 trillion economy with a cabinet of 15 ministers.

Tinubu on the other hand manages Nigeria’s $504 billion tottering economy with a cabinet of 48 ministers. That is a sharp contrast from the president’s call on deprived Nigerians to make sacrifices.

The 48 men and women in the cabinet along with the 469 members of the National Assembly live like kings. None of them believes in the president’s call for sacrifices which squeeze millions more into abject poverty.

The ministers and legislators live in stupendous opulence and utter defiance of the abject poverty in the land. They have defiantly stuck to the use of eight cylinder posh limousines at a time when petrol is selling in some parts of Nigeria above N700 per litre. They do not pay for the petrol they burn recklessly.

Nigeria’s presidential fleet musters more aircraft than Aero Contractors, Nigeria’s oldest commercial airline. Each of the ministers hit the street with a convoy of seven posh cars with one wearing away in profligate dormancy as it is never occupied by anyone except the driver. That is the minister’s back-up vehicle.

Nigeria has lost the war against corruption. That is why it is dying a painful death as corruption takes a toll on the naira exchange rate.

The pain is borne by the 140 million Nigerians toiling in abject poverty. Corruption has reduced Nigeria’s inconsequential majority to hewers of wood and drawers of water.

Ironically, Tinubu, like Buhari has maintained a deafening silence on corruption. Instead of arresting and prosecuting the scammers who made petrol subsidy unsustainable through duplicitous consumption figures, Tinubu punished consumers with outrageous pump prices.

Almost three months into the new administration, 450, 000 barrels of oil is stolen daily with no one lifting a finger in protest. That is why the naira is sinking.

https://blueprint.ng/nairas-woes-nigerias-failed-war-on-corruption/

😎😎

It was barely one month ago that some people were celebrating 💃 🕺 the propaganda news on Naira gaining value to dollar.

Some persons here said na just propaganda while others attacked them and called dem names.

Thiefnubuu is an excellent criminal.

Newton2024:
Thiefnubuu is an excellent criminal.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

A dollar sells for 960 naira as we speak. I traded at the BDC village in Wuse, Abuja, about 3hours ago.

TongueTwista:
A dollar sells for 960 naira as we speak. I traded at the BDC village in Wuse, Abuja, about 3hours ago.

It will cross 1000 naira before this month runs out. That's how incompetent Tinubu is.

Newton2024:
It will cross 1000 naira before this month runs out. That's how incompetent Tinubu is.

I'll be on the beneficial side if it sells for that amount. For once make I benefit from this stupid country.

Truth is you cant be a know thief and/or surround yourself with known thiefs and wants to fight corruption

it doesn't work like that

You can't steal and expect others not to steal

For a President or their family members to steal 10 billion it would cost Nigeria #100 billion because people down the line would steal 90 billion to cover it up

But people don't know this

To steal u need minister
perm sec
account director and others
office of accountant general,
CBN,
the banks that would close the tracks
Senate and rep committee
settle one or two press

That's over 50 people

Hezzyluv:
It was barely one month ago that some people were celebrating 💃 🕺 the propaganda news on Naira gaining value to dollar.

Some persons here said na just propaganda while others attacked them and called dem names.

I have an application that gives me notifications everytime there's a significant disparity between the dollar and naira. Stockbrokers and forex traders have same.

Since July ending, the naira has been on a free fall against the dollar. That slight change in the status quo was cause Shonubi and his Aso rock boss injected millions of dollars into the economy from the excess crude account. But it didn't last beyond three days.

Under normal societal circumstances, the appointment of a new CBN governor and other directors was supposed to affect the speculative market enough for the naira to gain against the dollar, even if for a few days. But because the currency market sees no relevance in those appointments, especially considering the fact that Yemi Cardoso will have no effective impacts on the current situation in the CBN atmosphere, even the forex market no send Tinubu papa!