The Nigerian naira has dropped to N585 against the dollar at the parallel market of the Foreign exchange market.
This represents a N4 depreciation of the naira currency as compared to the N581 it traded for last week. This information was gathered from the Bureau De Change operators (BDCs) popularly referred to as the “abokis” in Lagos on Thursday as they mentioned that the naira exchanges for N585/$1 while they buy at N579/$1, Leaving a gain of N6.
Since the suspension of the publishing of trading information by abokiFX- citizens have resorted to the street traders for current parallel market rates of the naira currency. However, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has constantly maintained that the parallel market represents less than one percent of the foreign exchange (FX) transactions.
On the CBN’s website, the naira closed at N416.42 to a dollar on the official market. Implying that official rates dropped N0.08 since 11 March 2022.
Nigerian economy is expected to be hit by the Russia-Ukraine crisis, as the country is import- driven. Also, a decline in diaspora remittances from Europe, especially the war zone is predicted, following the data on the country’s foreign reserves which has continually been on the decline as it dropped from US$39,841 billion since the war started on the 24th of February to US$39,703 billion on the 15th of March 2022.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy setting committee will meet next week to discuss the monetary rates and the geopolitical concerns in Europe.