Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, on Thursday briefed President Muhammadu Buhari over the instability in the country’s foreign exchange market . Aso Rock sources said the briefing was part of the sectorial briefings which the President has been receiving as a prelude to mid-term evaluation of his government.
Emerging from the presidential wing of the Villa after a closed door meeting, Emefiele told State House correspondents that he brought Mr President up to speed on the efforts being made by the central bank to stabilize the naira and rein in precipitate currency speculations arising from recent CBN forex policies.
Emefiele said he sees a bright spot ahead on the nation’s economic horizon given the rising price of crude oil which he said was “oscillating between $50 to $55 and $56” per barrel. According to him, the rise in crude oil prices at the international market was a boost to the stability of the naira. The value of the nation’s currency, he noted, is currently hovering between N380 and N385 in the parallel market.
He said: “Basically, as it’s expected, what we normally do is from time to time to brief the President about activities about the Central Bank of Nigeria particularly at this time as it relates to the efforts that the central bank is doing to stabilize the Forex market.
“And we briefed him regarding the activities so far and he was very delighted to hear that the market is stabilizing at the level that it is right now and I am saying the parallel market which currently stabilizes at between N380 and N385.
“There is no secret. It’s about the fact that at this time we have seen production of crude and increasing export of crude also. The fact that we have seen also crude prices oscillating to between $50 to $55 to $56. It has helped our revenue position and had also provided some ammunition for the Central Bank to defend the currency.
“Given what we have right now the fact that the revenues are looking good, the state of the economy is good and I believe that we are going to pull out of the problem in due course.
“Our responsibility as Central Bank of Nigeria is to do what we are doing at this time. Nigerians or importers, people who need foreign exchange to do businesses need these foreign exchanges to conduct businesses and given the fact that we are able to increase our EFEX revenues, the natural thing to do is to make the foreign exchange available to those who need them to import or to carry out eligible transactions”, he said.
