Nigeria:Buhari rejects currency devaluation

Nigeria’s president Mohammed Buhari on Wednesday rejected calls to devalue the country’s currency saying he will not kill the naira.

While on a state visit to Kenya, Buhari said allowing the currency fall would result in higher inflation and cause hardship for the poor and middle-class Nigerians.

“Proponents of devaluation will have to work much harder to convince him that ordinary Nigerians will gain anything from it,” Garba Shehu President Buhari’s Spokes person said. “The president added that he had no intention of bringing further hardship on the country’s poor who have suffered enough already.”

Speaking with Nigerians living in Kenya, Buhari maintained that while export driven economies could benefit from devaluation of currencies, devaluation will only result in further inflation and hardship for the poor and middle classes in the country’s import dependent economy.

He also rejected suggestions that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should resume sale of foreign exchange to Bureaux de Change (BDCs) adding that BDC business has become a scam and a drain on the economy.

“We had just 74 of the bureaux in 2005, now they have grown to about 2,800,” he noted.

He alleged that some bank and government officials used surrogates to run the BDCs and prosper at public expense by obtaining foreign exchange from government at official rates and selling it at much higher rates.

The President appealed to Nigerians studying abroad to bear with his administration as it strives to address the challenges facing the nation as a result of new foreign exchange measures.

I Will Never Kill the Naira – President Buhari Speaks on Currency Devaluation https://t.co/4MV7uN3l1c #EditorsPick #Hot

— Gist Us (@GistUsNigeria) 28 Janvier 2016