Following the collapse in oil prices to about $30 a barrel from over $100 a barrel last year, there is a chronic scarcity of dollars in Nigeria at the moment. This had meant that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been unable to meet the demands of commercial banks and among the main victims of the crunch are parents with children schooling abroad.
Such parents, most of them with children attending university in the UK, have been unable to pay school fees because the commercial banks will not exchange their naira for dollars. Acknowledging the problem, President Buhari said his position on the foreign exchange allocation issue is that the high demand is putting unnecessary pressure on the naira, which in turn affects Nigerian economy.
Convinced that the practice is responsible for the current free fall of the currency, President Buhari said the country could no longer continue to sell dollars to parents to sponsor their wards in schools abroad. He, however, added that any parent who could afford foreign exchange outside of the official window could go ahead.
President Buhari said: “Those who can afford foreign education for their children can go ahead but Nigeria cannot afford to allocate foreign exchange for those who decide to train their children outside the country. We can’t just afford it and that is the true situation we are in.”
In addition, the president also frowned on those who received foreign exchange from the CBN to buy pharmaceutical products abroad but divert such monies to make profits locally. He said the culprits guilty of such offences would be pursued, arrested and prosecuted.
“Anybody who is given dollars by the CBN to import pharmaceuticals and decides to go and sell in the parallel market in order to make, maybe additional N100, we will pursue them and punish them”, the president vowed.
Speaking on the state of economy and the pressure to devalue the naira, President Buhari stated that Nigeria was prepared to go against the advice of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in that regard. He maintained that the devaluation of the naira would not be beneficial to Nigeria, adding that the country was an importing nation.
President Buhari said: "Nigeria virtually imports everything, from rice to toothpicks, so it cannot afford to devalue its currency. If it is against our national interest, why can’t we go against the IMF advice?”
With some analysts and foreign institutions calling on the federal government to devalue the naira, President Buhari said he will not reconsider his insistence on freezing the currency. He also stated that despite plummeting crude oil prices in the international market, it would benefit Nigeria to remain in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
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