Naira regains strength, trades at N370/$

The naira regained strength against the dollar on Friday to exchange at N370/$.

This is compared to the N400/$ traded on Thursday and N375/$ traded on Wednesday.

There was panic buying in the bureaux de change segment of the market after speculations that the CBN would devalue the naira.

This was informed by a crash in the price of crude oil in the global market.

In a statement released on Thursday, the Central Bank of Nigeria laid to rest speculations that it would devalue the naira saying that the current market fundamentals do not support devaluation.

Addressing journalists at the presidential villa on Friday, Godwin Emefiele, the CBN governor, said anyone who has a legitimate need for forex would get it.

“What are we saying, you want to travel? – which we don’t advise at this time, you will get foreign exchange to travel. Do you want to conduct business, import? You will get foreign exchange to conduct that import transaction.

“So for that reason, there is no need for you to rush – everybody wants to rush to the exchange to that door to but foreign exchange that you don’t even require at this time thereby leading to the spike in the price of the dollars.”

Emefiele said the apex bank is working with security agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and Nigerian Financial Intelligence unit to find the people involved in creating panic.

“I can tell you that we will find them because they use accounts. We will find them and I will like to advise those involved to desist from it. But we are happy at this time that those who would have been affected by the panic being created by these speculators having read what we released to the market have now calmed down to say at least CBN has assured us that when we can get dollars to pay our school fees, we can get dollars to travel, you can get dollars to import our legitimate business we will get it.”

He said the sudden demand for forex was caused by “scrupulous individuals” as major manufacturing firms involved in raw material export to Nigeria have been shut down due to the coronavirus outbreak.