By this year’s end, I expect Nigeria’s foreign exchange hawkers
to sell a dollar for more than N500. If oil price fails to climb up, and the
Central Bank maintains its current policy, the dollar may hit N1, 000 before
the end of 2017. Is my prediction frightening?
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| *Buhari |
I’m not perturbed. The CBN is perhaps not perturbed. The rates
I’ve quoted are found only in the black market; in the white market, a dollar
is just N197. Last year, the then opposition APC promised to make $1 equal to
N1. To fulfil its campaign promise, the ruling APC should wait for some time
before applying former CBN governor Chukwuma Soludo’s redenomination idea by
striking out three zeros.
There is no better route to take now. Rather than hint of an
impending restriction of forex for medicals and school fees, as it did last
week, the apex bank should act immediately. It’s time to exclude ALL items from
forex allocations. Perhaps only then would Nigerians come to their senses and
begin to look inwards.
The dollar hunt has taken hawkers and bureaux de change
operators to Togo, Benin and even Ghana. They won’t get enough of it.
Not until the Nigerian government reverses itself on forex allocations to
criminals and importers of toothpicks.
And that’s what I dread most: the lack of continuity of policies.
It’s one of Nigeria’s
greatest problems. In this space, a fortnight ago, I canvassed supporting
importers of medicines, agric equipment and fuel with forex at the official
rate. Now, I eat my words. Ban them all! Let everyone that desires dollars, euros
and pounds source them at “autonomous” markets. I say so because I know
what Nigerians can do. Anyone who gets forex at the official rate is likely to
divert it to the parallel market: it is far more profitable to make 100 per
cent profit instantly than import machinery for business, with all the risks
involved.
