₦airaland Forum

Tianamen1:
Buhari spent money to defend the Naira. He borrowed dollars, used some of them for infrastructure, such as the trains, and converted the rest into our foreign reserves. Nigeria's debt-to-GDP rose to 22 per cent. Many influential Nigerians made money illegally through the CBN. That does not make his policy wrong.

He prevented the inflation that is happening now. He stopped the poverty that has occurred now. If he had reduced the cost of governance, most of the issues would have been solved. He failed to raise taxes, and he failed to limit Nigeria's demand for imports.

Tinubu floated the Naira, causing massive inflation, poverty and job losses in the private sector. Nigeria's GDP has shrunk to $180 billion, and its debt-to-GDP ratio has risen to 53 per cent. This implies that 53 per cent of Nigeria's total annual earnings are needed to service its debt.
His policies have also diminished our ability to develop a capitalist society, as inequality has risen.

CBN to pump $350m into Forex market again

March 4, 2017


By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief and Babajide Komolafe

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will this weekend, again, pump more dollars into the foreign exchange market in continuation of its strategy to further strengthen the value of the Naira.

A source in the apex bank, said that the CBN has planned the release of an additional $350 million bringing the total to $570 million in this week alone to further crash the value of the Dollar.

Already this has generated panic among currency traders who are yet to recover from the losses some of them have suffered in the last two weeks owing to sharp and sudden appreciation of the Naira.

Confirming the development, the Acting Director, Corporate communications, Isaac Okorafor, told our correspondent that, with improving reserve levels, the Bank was determined to continuously make forex available to all genuine customers through their banks.

Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele

The nation’s foreign reserve hit about $29 billion as at Tuesday, last week, a position that has given comfort to the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, and his team to massively intervene in the forex market.

With the current position, those hoarding the hard currencies would have to quickly off-load to reduce their losses.

Informed sources speak of the likelihood of a liquidity glut as banks are beginning to send out salespeople to scout for customers to buy the dollar in an effort to avoid losses arising from the expected further appreciation of the naira.

It will be recalled that since last Tuesday the CBN has so far supplied a total of $570 million to the market made up of $80 million for Personal Travel Allowance (PTA), Medicals and school fees, $100 million in wholesale forwards, an additional $350 million planned for injection on Friday or Saturday

Tianamen1:
Obasanjo established an excess crude account to save money for when oil prices would fall. Obasanjo accrued cash in Nigeria's foreign reserves.

GEJ wasted all that money.

Buhari met very low oil prices and had no money to defend the Naira. Buhari's solution was to put a band-aid on the wound (the problems the economy was facing). He imposed a ban on forty items, aiming to stimulate local production, and established a fixed exchange rate policy to prevent the Naira from depreciating and causing poverty and inflation. Buhari should have also focused on reducing the cost of governance,

Tinubu simply removed the band-aid and allowed the wound to get rotten. Tinubu devalued the Naira without reducing the cost of governance and called it reforms. Tinubu has wasted 2 years and is about to waste another 6 months without implementing a proper tax policy. His tax policy doesn't even go far enough to fix issues.