Business & Economy

Tinubu Tells Nigerians To Buy Nigeria-made Goods To Boost Naira

Published

8 months ago

Mar 22, 2024.

President Bola Tinubu urged Nigerians to support locally made products to maintain the recent improvements in the naira’s value.
The Tinubu administration implemented measures like ceasing petrol subsidies and unifying foreign exchange rates to combat currency volatility.
Special Adviser Ajuri Ngelale emphasized the need for collaboration with the Central Bank and reporting of activities devaluing the local currency.

Eko Hot Blog reports that on Friday, President Bola Tinubu urged Nigerians to support locally made products and services to maintain the recent improvements in the naira’s value in the foreign exchange market.

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He said the recent appreciation of the value of the naira against the dollar does not spell Uhuru yet.

Therefore, he appealed for increased cooperation from citizens, encouraging them to report individuals involved in activities that devalue the local currency.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngele, shared this information with journalists during a State House briefing on Friday, where he conveyed Tinubu’s message.

Since taking office 10 months ago, the Tinubu administration has ceased petrol subsidies, citing the potential to allocate saved funds towards infrastructure development.

Additionally, the administration implemented a unified foreign exchange rate system to combat currency arbitrage. Nevertheless, these measures have led to increased volatility in the Naira’s value and elevated hardships for Nigerians due to soaring food prices.

In February 2024, N1,900 was exchanged for one USD in the black market. The Naira has recently seen a steady climb against the US dollar, exchanging N1,382/$ at the official market on Thursday.

Ngelale argued that a stronger naira is necessary for working citizens as it would complement the new minimum wage upon implementation.

He explained, “I’m confident that Nigerians have witnessed the strengthening of the Nigerian Naira against the United States Dollar. This is clearly the direction all of us have wanted to head, and we are very sober to the fact that this is no time to rest or to clap.

“This is why His Excellency President Bola Tinubu has approved a series of interventions to ensure that we see a mass strengthening of the Nigerian Naira against all other global currencies.

“One, President Bola Tinubu, wants to communicate very clearly to our people that there has never been a more important time in our history to actively agree together that we will patronise and purchase made-in-Nigeria products across all value chains, across all sectors.

“There is an intentionality that we must have on this issue, and we want a strong currency. We want the spending power of our people to go up. We want every Naira and kobo we earn to be more valuable, not just here, but when we travel abroad, the way to achieve that is by doing just this.”

He stressed that the strengthening of the Naira was achieved through collaboration with the Central Bank and other government agencies in “dealing decisively with sharp practices on certain crypto-currency trading platforms, within the parallel market of the foreign exchange ecosystem.”

To complement these efforts, the presidential spokesman said Tinubu is appealing to Nigerians to “blow the whistle wherever they see any of these sharp practices taking place, to communicate with the agencies that deal with these issues directly.”

He noted that while the administration is poised to arrive at a new minimum wage states can afford; it also wants it pegged at a number that is “sustainable over a number of years based on the long-term stability that we want to bring to the Nigerian Naira with the interventions we’re presently making.”