The Presidency has warned forex speculators to discard their United States dollars, saying that the Naira would soon appreciate.
President Bola Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, made this call in a statement via his X handle on Thursday.
The presidential aide urged speculators to quickly dump their dollars to avoid “tears”.
He wrote: “With backlog FX settled, Naira is set to appreciate further, faster. Currency speculators should quickly dump their stock of dollars to avoid sorrows and tears”.
Onanuga was reacting to the disclosure of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) that it had cleared the $7 billion foreign exchange backlog inherited by Governor Yemi Cardoso.
In a statement on Wednesday, CBN’s Acting Director of Corporate Communications, Mrs. Hakama Sidi Ali, confirmed the settlement of all valid foreign exchange backlog claims.
Ali said the apex bank employed Deloitte Consulting, an independent auditing firm, to meticulously assess the transactions, ensuring that only legitimate claims were honoured.
“Any invalid transactions were referred to the relevant authorities for further investigation”, she stated.
The CBN’s commitment to tackling the foreign exchange backlog appears to be paying off, with the external reserves seeing a significant rise, reaching $34.11 billion as of 7th March 2024, the highest level in eight months.
