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Disclosing that it anticipated the steady rise in the value of the Naira as witnessed in the past few days, the Presidency has assured that the policies being worked on by the President Bola Tinubu administration will further strengthen the Naira that it will soon exchange for N500 to one United States Dollar.
Special Adviser to the President on Economic Matters, Dr Tope Fasua, who disclosed this at the “Cowries to Cash” lecture and lunch in Abuja yesterday, noted that the fall in the value of the currency of any country was a sign of conquest.
“When you want to destroy a country, destroy its currency first.”
He warned Nigerians hoarding foreign currencies with the hope that the local currency will continue to fall to be prepared for the shock of their lives going by the current policies of the federal government.
Fasua, who represented Vice President Kashim Shettima at the event said: “For those who are speculating and praying and wishing that the currency would become nonsense, I believe that policies being rolled out by the Central Bank and the government that I serve, led by the President, will shock some of them.
“You need to listen to the agenda from the man himself (Tinubu) and you will see that the level at which he is thinking is far ahead of most of us. You know, he has some very great ideas coming up. Some of them are what you’ve seen reversing the fall in the value of the naira, but he has also challenged us to review forward many of the targets, for example, the idea that Nigeria’s economy will get to a trillion dollars.
He wants to achieve it by 2026.
“Some people thought the naira would continue to lose value. Of course, we can already see what’s going on and who knows, maybe the naira will strengthen even further to maybe something 500 or 600. I’m beginning to see some of those,” he asserted.
The Economy adviser further disclosed that there was going to be some tectonic reorganization of the banking sector to make the naira more stable and stronger.
“If you want to position your exports properly, you have to be strategic, even in terms of the value of your currency. So you’re going to see all of these, including efforts from the fiscal side.
We have patriots running the economy right now. And naysayers have to be very, very afraid,” Fasua said.
In his keynote address at the event, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Dr Olayemi Cardoso said the country was going through economic challenges occasioned by a number of macroeconomic issues linked to some of the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
The CBN governor, who was represented by the Director of Banking Supervision, Mustapha Haruna, observed that the phenomenal transformation of the Nigerian payment system in the last two or three decades has been deepened by the implementation of the cashless policy.
“One of our strategic priorities in this effort is to foster financial inclusion and I’m very sure you will also relate to the progress we have made, based on the current numbers.
“We have financial inclusion in the neighbourhood of about 64 per cent. Over 64 per cent of Nigerians have access to formal financial services.
“Our vision is to push the boundaries to over 95 per cent and we are well on course, in achieving that objective,” Cardoso said.
