BREAKING NEWS: Naira Falls To ₦540 Per Dollar

The Nigerian naira has continued its downward spiral fall as Naira Falls To ₦540 Per Dollar at the parallel market on Thursday.

The drop comes barely a week after it traded at N530 against the American currency.

The exchange rates have been on a downward slope, after the suspension of foreign exchange transactions with bureau de change operators. Same day last week the national currency traded at N530 per dollar.

In July, Peoples Gazette had reported the CBN ban on foreign exchange sales to bureau de change operators, band an indefinite suspension issuance of licences to money changers.

The bank then instructed commercial banks to set up teller points in branches, so that dollars and other foreign currencies would be made available to Nigerians

The naira has been on a constant decline since the Buhari-led administration came into power. When President Muhammadu Buhari assumed his responsibilities in May 2015, it was trading at about 187 to a dollar.

The administration has faced backlash for its handling of the country’s fiscal and monetary policies. Officials however dismissed the criticisms, saying the government came on board at a time of perilous economic situation that stemmed from decades of mismanagement by previous administrations.

Naira Falls: Naira weaken in possible move to unify exchange rates

Nigeria let the naira weaken to a record low against the dollar on the official market on Friday, according to traders, who said this could be a move by the central bank to unify multiple exchange rates.

It weakened further on the black market, traders said.

“What the central bank is saying is that the (OTC) spot rate will be the official rate because that’s where the largest volumes trade,” one currency trader at a major Nigerian bank told Reuters.

Nigeria operates multiple currency regimes, which frustrate businesses and have prompted calls from the World Bank for the rates to be unified to attract investment.

Rising dollar demand has put pressure on the naira as providers of foreign exchange, such as offshore investors, exited after the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a fall in global oil prices.

Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele in February said the currency was trading at 410 naira on the official market while the government has been using that rate for its business as it tries to boost earnings from crude sales, its main export.

The World Bank has linked approval of a $1.5 billion budget support loan to currency reforms.

The central bank had been trying to unify the rates and boost the dollar supply through direct interventions.

It revised the futures rate on the naira upwards last month to ease pressure on the currency after quoting the 150-day futures contract at 435.81 naira, in its first dollar sales to foreign investors this year.

The bank is due to hold its interest rate setting meeting later this month with economic data on inflation and first quarter growth figures expected from next week.

It has kept rates on hold to support the economy hobbles by lower oil prices and impact of COVID-19 pandemic but dollar shortages have been contributing to rising inflation, a key source of concern for the central bank.

‘It is really bad’: Naira Falls While Nigerians go hungry as food inflation soars

‘I can’t simply afford to give my children what they really need in terms of food,’ said Feyintola Bolaji, a mother of three in her 50s based in Nigeria’s southwestern city of Ibadan.

Nigerian merchant Feyintola Bolaji, struggling with stagnant earnings and dwindling sales, is now being squeezed by the ever increasing prices demanded by her food suppliers, leading her to cut down on the amount she can put on her own family’s table.

Bolaji’s belt tightening is being shared by millions across Africa’s most populous nation. Not long after Nigeria’s statistics agency revealed that one in three people in the continent’s largest economy were unemployed, on Thursday it announced that food inflation has accelerated at the highest pace in 15 years, compounding the misery of many households.

READ THIS: 10 Profitable Business Ideas To Start in Nigeria

“It is really bad, I can’t simply afford to give my children what they really need in terms of food,” said Bolaji, a mother of three in her 50s based in the southwestern city of Ibadan. “I try to make them get the nutrients they need as growing children, but it is not enough,” she said, adding “I have had to cut down on meat and fish.”

Insurgency, unrest, and the stand of President Muhammadu Buhari’s government on food imports in a nation where more than half the population lives on less than $2 a day are worsening food insecurity in the African country.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic has robbed 70% of Nigerians of some form of income, according to a Covid-19 impact survey published by the statistics agency last month.

Food inflation rose to 22.95% in March, caused by wide-ranging price increases across items such as cereals, yam, meat, fish and fruits.

READ THIS: Get a Fast Loan in Nigeria

Those soaring costs have been in part blamed on a worsening conflict between farmers and herders in Nigeria’s agriculture belt that Buhari has struggled to quash.

The unrest, combined with the more than decade-long Boko Haram insurgency in the north, a weakening currency and higher fuel prices have also contributed to rising food prices, according to SBM Intelligence, a Nigerian research firm.