President Muhammadu Buhari has again rejected calls for the devaluation of the naira, saying he has yet to be convinced that the country and its people will derive any tangible benefit from such a move.
A statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, on Thursday quoted the President as speaking at a meeting he had with Nigerians living in Kenya late on Wednesday. Buhari, who is currently on a three-day state visit to Kenya, was said to have maintained that while export-driven economies could benefit from the devaluation of their currencies, such a move would only result in further inflation and hardship for the poor and middle class in Nigeria’s import-dependent economy.
The President said he had no intention of bringing further hardship on the country’s poor, who he noted had suffered enough already. He likened further devaluation of the naira to having the currency “killed.” Buhari added that proponents of devaluation must work harder to convince him that ordinary Nigerians would gain anything from it. The President also rejected suggestions that the Central Bank of Nigeria should resume the sale of foreign exchange to Bureaux De Change, saying that the BDC business had 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. Buhari alleged that some bank and government officials used surrogates to run the BDCs and prosper at public expense by obtaining foreign exchange from the government at official rates and selling it at much higher rates.
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