Compared with the N1,551.24 which it closed on Tuesday, the
naira had appreciated by 0.6 per cent on Wednesday compared to a 2.9 per cent
appreciation recorded the previous day. On Tuesday, inflow at the NAFEM had
increased from $68 million on Monday to $117.32 million, with intraday trading
recording a low N1,701 and high of N1,100 trading to the dollar.
Inflow at the official market rose to $172.14 million with
trades done between N1,755 an N1,050 to the dollar. The appreciation recorded
at the official market, however, further widened the gap between the official
and parallel market rates.
At the parallel market, the value has so far depreciated by
at least 23 per cent between Monday and Wednesday when compared to N1,625 which
it sold at the close of business last week.The value of the naira at the
parallel market varied by location with some traders quoting N2,010 to the
dollars while some quoted N1,900, and N1,880 to the dollars. However, the
volume traded and basis for the spike could not be determined as of press time.
Meanwhile, operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission have continued its raid on Bureau de Change operators which it said
were hoarding dollars. On Monday, it had raided some BDC operators at the Wuse
Zone 4 area of Abuja and arrested about 50 illegal operators.
Similarly, not fewer than seven BDC operators and others
were arrested by operatives of the EFCC on Wednesday in Kano state. The persons
were arrested by the operatives who carried out a raid on the BDC operators at
the popular forex exchange WAPA market in Fagge local government area of the
state.
The Chairman of the market, Malam Sani who confirmed the
development to newsmen in Kano, said the operatives raided the market in search
of hoarders of dollars.
A special adviser to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Bayo
Onanuga, had also yesterday, accused crypto trading platform, Binance of
manipulating the value of the naira. In a post on X, Onanuga accused Binance of
“blatantly setting exchange rate for Nigeria, hijacking CBN role.
“The EFCC and the CBN should move against these platforms
trying to manipulate our national currency to Ground Zero. Crypto should be
banned in our country or else this bleeding of our currency will continue
unabated.”
The post comes after Binance’s peer-to-peer (P2P) platform
for Nigerian users “automatically paused” yesterday after users reported
difficulties selling USDT above a specific price.
However, veteran stockbroker and lecturer at Adeleke
University, Professor Tayo Bello, told LEADERSHIP on Wednesday night that the
clampdown on BDC operators was just window-dressing which will not make any
meaniful impact on the market.He said, the real culprits of hoarding of the
foreign currencies are the well-connected Nigerians that have been keeping
dollars in their houses.
Also, an economist, Bunmi Agunbiade said the only way to fix
the naira is for the Nigerian economy to become a productive export-driven
economy.
Efforts to get information from the apex bank on the reason
for the continous arbitrage between the official market rate and the parallel
market rate proved abortive as several calls made to the phone number of Mrs.
Hakama Sidi-Ali, CBN’s Acting Director of the Corporate Communications
Department, at 9:50pm Wednesday night were not responded. Also, text messages
sent to her phone number were not responded to.
Concerns have been raised that restricting media access at
the NAFEX platform was inimical to transparency, as the public would be unable
to know the volume of transactions traded and who bought what, which could
sometimes be a restraint.