Those hoarding Naira will get a shock, Presidency assures

The Presidency has assured that President Bola Tinubu’s administration would remain relentless in working on policies that will strengthen the Naira.

Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Economic Matters, Dr Tope Fasua, stated this at the “Cowries to Cash” lecture and lunch on Tuesday in Abuja.

Within the past few months, Naira had nosedived against the US Dollar, Pounds and other strong foreign currencies.

However, it has been on a steady rise in value within the past few days.

Fasua, who represented Vice President Kashim Shettima at the event, expressed optimism that the trend was bound to get better due to the economic policies that had been implemented by the government.

While noting that the fall in the value of the currency of a country was a sign of conquest, he stated: “When you want to destroy a country, destroy its currency first.”

The presidential aide warned those who were hoarding foreign currencies with the hope that the local currency would continue to fall, stressing that they would be surprised by the positive outcome of the government policies.

“For those who are speculating and praying and wishing that the currency would become nonsense, I believe that policies being rolled out by the Central Bank and the government that I serve, led by the President, will shock some of them.

“You need to listen to the agenda from the man himself (Tinubu) and you will see that the level at which he is thinking is far ahead of most of us.

“You know, he has some very great ideas coming up. Some of them are what you’ve seen reversing the fall in the value of the naira, but he has also challenged us to review forward many of the targets, for example, the idea that Nigeria’s economy will get to a trillion dollars.

READ ALSO: Again, Naira slumps against dollar at parallel, official markets, trades at N1120, N809/$1

“Some people thought the naira will continue to lose value. Of course, we can already see what’s going on and who knows, maybe the naira will strengthen even further to maybe something 500 or 600. I’m beginning to see some of those.

“If you want to position your exports properly, you have to be strategic, even in terms of the value of your currency. So you’re going to see all of these, including efforts from the fiscal side.

“We have patriots running the economy right now. And naysayers have to be very, very afraid,” Fasua said.

Meanwhile, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr Olayemi Cardoso, in his keynote address at the event said Nigeria was facing economic challenges due to a couple of macroeconomic issues linked to some of the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

Cardoso, represented by the Director of Banking Supervision, Mustapha Haruna, added: “One of our strategic priorities in this effort is to foster financial inclusion and I’m very sure you will also relate to the progress we have made, based on the current numbers.

“We have financial inclusion in the neighbourhood of about 64 per cent. Over 64 per cent of Nigerians have access to formal financial services.

“Our vision is to push the boundaries to over 95 per cent and we are well on course, in achieving that objective.”

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now