FX rates: Stop patronising parallel market, CBN only legal platform -Presidential aide urges Nigerians

Feb. 29, 2024

A presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga has urged Nigerians to stop patronising the parallel market for Forex rates, saying the website of the Central Bank of Nigeria is the only legal platform.

Onanuga said this on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Wednesday.

According to him, the parallel market is not the real gauge of Nigeria’s economic health. The parallel market is an illegal market.

“I don’t even know why Nigerians and the media are feeding on the parallel market. That is not where we should go; what’s the CBN rate? As at Friday, the rate for the dollar was about N1600.

“Even in the so-called parallel market, the exchange rate is stabilising there and that is what this needs. Our economy is too much dollarised. Importers are looking at the exchange rate and using it to fix prices, some of them arbitrarily, some of them actually profiteering,” Onanuga stated.

According to him, once the CBN succeeds in stabilising the exchange rate, the prices of goods in the country will normalise. “Things are not going to get worse, they are going to get better in the next few weeks,” he added.