The Presidency urged Nigerians on Friday to buy made-in-Nigeria goods and services in order to strengthen the gains made by the Naira in the foreign exchange market. This was disclosed to State House journalists by Ajuri Ngelale, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, who stated that a stronger naira would complement the new minimum wage.
He said, “I’m confident that Nigerians have witnessed the strengthening of the Nigeria Naira against the United States Dollar. This is clearly the direction all of us have wanted to head, and we are very sober to the fact that this is no time to rest or to clap.
“This is why His Excellency, President Bola Tinubu has approved a series of interventions to ensure that we see a mass strengthening of the Nigerian Naira against all other global currencies.
“One, President Bola Tinubu, wants to communicate very clearly to our people that there has never been a more important time in our history to actively agree together that we will patronize and purchase made-in-Nigeria products across all value chains, across all sectors.
“There is an intentionality that we must have on this issue, and we want a strong currency. We want the spending power of our people to go up. We want every Naira and kobo we earn to be more valuable, not just here, but when we travel abroad, the way to achieve that is by doing just this.”
He stated that the strengthening of the Naira was a result of collaboration between the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other relevant government agencies to “dealing decisively with sharp practices on certain crypto-currency trading platforms, within the parallel market of the foreign exchange ecosystem.”
According to him, President Tinubu urged Nigerians to “blow the whistle wherever they see any of these sharp practices taking place, to communicate with the agencies that deal with these issues directly.”
Recall that as of February 2024, 1 US Dollar exchanged for N1,900 at the black market, but the Naira has recently strengthened against the US Dollar, exchanging for about N1,4000 per 1 US Dollar at the official market rate on Thursday.
