Time moves but the standing of the Nigerian Naira when measured against the United States Dollar only points to weakness based on what the value reads as of early Monday 29 January.

Naira depreciation going on unabated is a particular headache for import-based merchants. And investors too when they need to repatriate their earnings.

On the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market’s data board, the value of the Nigerian currency was pegged at ₦1348.63/$, creating a burden that has got manufacturers grumbling about an inability to surmount huge costs.

There are manufacturers and also the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress in the 2023 General Elections mounting a pulpit of gloom as the value of the Naira decreased by up to ₦1482.57/$ mid-week in the foreign exchange market’s Investor and Exporter window.

Mr Omoyele Sowore on an early morning television programme reviewing President Bola Tinubu’s first seven months in office had the air of the all-seeing because of his forecast that projected Naira’s depreciation by up to ₦1,500 to a dollar in 2024.

The rough projection seems to be taking form although Nigerians are only just rounding up the first month of the New Year.

My prediction in December of 2023 is that the Nigerian currency -Naira- will be exchanged for ₦1,500 to $1 by 2024, and it has come to pass, and we are still in January. The earlier we all realise that this country has been finished and we all go out take our country back the better.

My prediction in December of 2023 is that the Nigerian currency -Naira- will be exchanged for ₦1,500 to $1 by 2024, and it has come to pass, and we are still in January. The earlier we all realize that this country has been finished and we all go out take our country back the… pic.twitter.com/fGZR10OzqL

— Omoyele Sowore (@YeleSowore) January 30, 2024

It did not help that the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria Mr Olayemi Cardoso had given an assurance to the business community to expect better outcomes soon. The governor made this confidence-building part of a keynote speaker speech he rendered last week at the launch of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) 2024 Macroeconomic Outlook Report.

Since his address last week Wednesday, the inflation rate has stayed at 28.92 percent according to the central bank’s most recent data. Nonetheless, Governor Cardoso still has a firm belief in expected positive outcomes.

The comment we believe that the naira is currently undervalued and, coupled with coordinated measures on the fiscal side, we will expedite genuine price discovery in the near term echoes his Wednesday speech but for how long do ordinary Nigerians have to hang on?

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It is the first time that they have seen their national currency lose such a huge chunk of value when compared to the dollar.

The decline to ₦1348.63/$ in the NAFEM recorded on Tuesday practically happened overnight and within a spate of four days because the Friday earlier, the official exchange rate was N891.90/$. In the sleepiness of the weekend, the fragility of the Naira since it was floated in Mid-2023 got to become really obvious.

Ayodele Johnson

Ayodelé is a Lagos-based journalist and the Content and Editorial Coordinator at Meiza. All around the megacity, I am steering diverse lifestyle magazine audiences with ingenious hacks and insights that spur fast, informed decisions in their busy lives.