CBN devalues naira to N631/$1
The Central Bank of Nigeria has devalued the naira to N631 to the dollar from N461.6.
The devaluation came 48 hours after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu announced the plans of the Federal Government to unify the country’s exchange rate to stimulate the economy.
According to the Daily Trust, it was sold at the new rate on the Importers and Exporters window on Wednesday.
Daily Trust’s finding, however, revealed that at the resumption of the weekly bidding for foreign exchange, the apex bank sold the spot rate to banks on behalf of their customers at N631 to a dollar and most bidders got the full amount they requested.
One of the customers told this paper that they applied and that their request was fully granted at N631 as against N461.6.
The move has also seen prices at the parallel market trend downwards. Checks by this paper revealed that prices dropped from N750 to a dollar in the early hours of yesterday to N745 by evening in Abuja and Kano respectively.
The naira weakened in the parallel market to the lowest level in a year on expectations of a possible change in exchange rate management after Tinubu takes office on Monday.
The naira dropped to N762 a dollar on Friday from 775 the previous day in the unauthorized market in Lagos, said Umar Salisu, a BDC operator who tracks the data in the nation’s commercial capital.
The unit has weakened steadily in the parallel market since last week after stabilizing for most of this year.
The market arbitrage (difference between the official and parallel markets) has widened in the past three years from N100 per dollar or about 30 percent in 2020 to over N400 per dollar (above 100 percent) sometime last year when the black market rate spiked to N880/$.
