Posted on: 03:17 Thu, 28 Jan 2016



President Muhammadu Buhari declared late on
Wednesday in Nairobi, Kenya that he was yet to
be convinced that Nigeria and its people will
derive any tangible benefit from an official
devaluation of the Naira.

Speaking at an interactive meeting with
Nigerians living in Kenya, President Buhari
maintained that while export-driven economies
could benefit from devaluation of their
currencies, devaluation will only result in further
inflation and hardship for the poor and middle
classes in Nigeria’s import-dependent economy.

The President added that he had no intention of
bringing further hardship on the country’s poor
who, he said, have suffered enough already.
Likening devaluing the Naira to having it “killed”,
President Buhari said proponents of devaluation
will have to work much harder to convince him
that ordinary Nigerians will 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 Bureau de Change 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,” President
Buhari noted.

He alleged that some bank and government
officials used surrogates to run the BDCs and
prosper at public expense by obtaining foreign
exchange from government at official rates and
selling it at much higher rates.

He said: “We will use our foreign exchange for
industry, spare parts and the development of
needed infrastructure.

“We don’t have the Dollars to give to the BDCs.

“Let them go and get it from wherever they can,
other than the Central Bank.”

The President reaffirmed his conviction that
about a third of petroleum subsidy payments
under the previous administration was bogus.

“They just stamped papers and collected our
foreign exchange,” he said.

The President appealed to Nigerians studying
abroad to bear with his administration as it
strives to address the challenges they are
facing as a result of new foreign exchange
measures.

He said he was optimistic that the Nigerian
economy will stabilize soon with the efficient
implementation of measures and policies that
have been introduced by his administration.