Tinubu will shock currency speculators — Presidency

The presidency has disclosed that President Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s administration is working on policies that will strengthen the naira.

The Special Adviser to the President on Economic Matters, Dr Tope Fasua, disclosed this at the “Cowries to Cash” lecture and lunch in Abuja on Tuesday.

Daily Trust reports that there has been a steady rise in the value of the naira in the past few days, and Fasua said the trend was expected to continue as a result of policies being implemented by the government.

While positing that the fall in the value of the currency of a country was a sign of conquest, he said, “When you want to destroy a country, destroy its currency first.”

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He cautioned Nigerians who are hoarding foreign currencies with the hope that the local currency would continue to fall, warning that the policies of the government would shock them.

Fasua, who represented the 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 the policies are being rolled out by the central bank and the government that I serve, led by the president, will shock some of them.

He further said the president had challenged his team 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. 

“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.”

In his keynote address at the event, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr Olayemi Cardoso, who was represented by the Director of Banking Supervision, Mustapha Haruna, 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.

He said the book (Cowries to Cashless) would eloquently capture the evolutionary journey in the history of the CBN, particularly with regards to the phenomenal transformation of the Nigerian payment system in the last two or three decades.

Speaking on the essence of the book, the author and Executive Director of Asher Global Treasures, Princess Iphie, said: “If you don’t know what yesterday was and you don’t know what is today, definitely you will not know what tomorrow will be. So, we started from Cowries to Manillas and then other ones before we started with the exchange of goods and then this is where we are right now – the technological age and loads of innovation.”