The Naira yesterday surged to a new height of N1,173.88 at the official while appreciating slightly to N1,480 as against N1,500 it was on Monday at the unofficial market.
The British Pound also recorded a marginal gain at N1,888 while Euro exchanged for N1,630. The Canadian Dollars sold for N1,112 and one Chinese Yuan was sold for N150.
While this is good news, there was no data or any recognisable fundamentals either from the Central Bank of Nigeria or the Ministry of Finance to justify the latest upward surge.
Stakeholders argue that the Nigerian naira needs stability, just as the latest gain will further interrogate the potency of CBN’s monetary policy rate and other fiscal policies to stabilise the naira.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, insisted that high investment in agriculture has the potential to reduce food inflation and strengthen the naira, saying, “the President’s reforms, strategies and programmes have turned the country in the right direction of growth,” he said, adding that the potential that agriculture has to help move the economy forward and reduce inflation has not yet been tapped.
“By the time the dry season harvest is over, and the wet season production come in, it is going to significantly bring down food inflation which is 50 percent of headline inflation in the country.”
The Minister, who did not mention any policy decision taken so far by the government to stabilise the naira going forward, argued that as inflation comes down, it will give the monetary authority a chance to stabilise the exchange rate.”
