Stephen Angbulu

The Presidency says a controlled floatation of the naira to prevent further devaluation would only return Nigeria to the economic regime of the embattled former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele.

It said the policy, which saw about $1.5bn spent monthly to shore up the naira, fuelled financial malpractices, such as arbitrage which hurt the economy.

The Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr Bayo Onanuga, made this assertion in a statement he signed Sunday titled, ‘Once again, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar got it wrong.’

Onanuga was responding to a former Vice President and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party at the 2023 polls, Atiku Abubakar, who argued that Tinubu’s economic policies, especially the unification of the exchange rate, were implemented hastily without adequate planning and proper consultations with stakeholders.

President Tinubu’s economic reforms of the past nine months have sparked collateral instability in the value of the naira, heaping hardship on Nigerians as food prices continue to soar.

Atiku criticised the government, saying, “The wrong policies of the Tinubu administration continue to cause untold pain and distress on the economy and the rest of us cannot keep quiet when the government has demonstrated sufficient poverty of ideas to redeem the situation.”

He argued that “Given Nigeria’s underlying economic conditions, adopting a floating exchange rate system would be an overkill. We would have encouraged the Central Bank of Nigeria to adopt a gradualist approach to FX management. A managed-floating system would have been a preferred option.”

Atiku observed that the naira might fluctuate daily in such a system, but the CBN would step in to control and stabilise its value.

“Such control will be exercised judiciously and responsibly, especially to curb speculative activities,” he noted.

But the Presidency disagreed, saying, “Atiku’s alternative of a controlled floatation of the naira is similar to the policy of Godwin Emefiele when an estimated $1.5bn was spent monthly to shore up the naira, while arbitrage or round-tripping went on unhindered. Sadly, it was perpetrated by people close to the corridors of power.”

Onanuga noted that last Thursday’s meeting between the President, his vice, and state governors was not to discuss currency fluctuation as Atiku claimed but food supply and how to drastically reduce the fluctuation in food prices.

Citing Tinubu’s plea to governors to allow the CBN to work and his stance not to establish a commodity board, he said, “We expected Alhaji Atiku to praise President Tinubu for maintaining this stance and for not interfering with the business of Central Bank.

"It is false and preposterous for Atiku to claim that CBN’s FX management policy was hurriedly put together without proper plans and consultations with stakeholders and that the apex bank is hamstrung by Tinubu’s government in implementing a sound FX Management Policy’ that would have dealt with such issues as increasing liquidity, curtailing/regulating demand, dealing with FX backlogs and rate convergence.’

https://punchng.com/atikus-solution-will-return-nigeria-to-emefiele-era-presidency/

Ripping off the Dollar subsidy overnight was an excellent idea.

If you do it slowly everybody will change their naira to Dollars and cause even more pressure.

However Fuel Subsidy could have been done gradually to be honest, as compared to dollar, you cannot hoard fuel. They should have done a quarterly subsidy removal and done it in 6-8 quarters.

Raising interests rate all over the world was done gradually 2 years later some countries have just dipped into a "controlled recession". Imagine if the USA or UK had jacked up rates from 1% to 8% overnight.

This is similar to what Nigeria just did with the fuel subsidy. More than 90% of Nigerians make a living directly or indirectly from subsidized fuel.

There is now way this government can survive without transferring that subsidy to another sector, most likely food. If you increase the salaries too much, it will cause mega inflation, because the prices will just go up even further. Its better for the production to produce things that will cater for the current "spending power" of Nigerians.

However this system can only work if some people are not looting the country blind. When the government is ready to tackle these people then their policies will work.

Here they are again, denying & discarding the obvious

So the naira should just continue its free-fall & devaluation spree without any tangible intervention

#Incompetent, Clueless & Egocentric Folks in Government

While the current calamitous economic policies of the current Tinubu government is taking us to apocalypse

Emefiele Era is now better than Tinubu's Emilokon

In otherword the blame had shifted from Jonathan properly to APC Buhari of the ruling party....clueless blamers.

Dem blame so tay begin blame themselves.

Blame politics of APC.

you think the opposition will give you good advice? politics is not played that way this emilokan people daft no be small.

Then give us something better, I don't really blame the government, na still the fools whey dey try defend them I dey blame

Your policies are making the country go worse and here you are saying you are better than Emefiele era

Useless bunches

APC should shut the heck up at this point. If Nigerian politicians had any sliver of shame, ALL of them would have resigned after 2 months in power, starting from their lord, BAT.

It's very obvious at this point that the entire governing council knows NOTHING about visionary leadership. All they know is how to make promises with zero action. Idiots.

There's no Nigerian who believes Cardoso or whatever they call him is better than Emefiele. These politicians are insulated from the general public

Atiku thinks it is privatisation.